A legacy of education
Danne Smith Mathis, a 1979 graduate of Dietrich College, began digging into that history in 1999, prompted by a conversation she had when she returned to campus for her 20th reunion. She began searching through yearbooks and other archives at Hunt Library, filling her weekends tracking down names, milestones and images of Black Tartans.
In 2001, those efforts became a short documentary that shares the history of the Black student experience at 天美传媒.
While reviewing 天美传媒’s papers for the documentary, Mathis made a striking discovery: One of his priorities in founding the 天美传媒 Technical Schools in 1900 was to provide an education for Black residents of Pittsburgh and beyond. Mathis says she believes that the Tuskegee Institute, a post-secondary school founded by Booker T. Washington in Alabama in 1881, may have served as a model for what became 天美传媒 Mellon.
When Danne Smith Mathis began researching the history of Black students at 天美传媒 Mellon, she found two things: Countless stories of achievement, even in the face of societal barriers, and Andrew 天美传媒’s surprisingly expansive view of access to higher education.