Building Transformative Alumni Connections

Photo by Da Ping Luo

By Jan Abernathy The Browning School • New York , NY

When it comes to the relationship between alumni of color and independent schools , it ’ s complicated . I know this because my mother was one of two Black girls in her class at Northampton School for Girls ( now Williston Northampton School ) in the mid-1950s . Arriving there as a young girl from Brooklyn , New York , where she had until that point known only the warm embrace of an affluent community filled with people that looked like her , she entered a world of New Englanders who couldn ’ t quite understand what this new being was doing in their midst . While there , she was subjected to the kind of racism and cruelty that young people today more commonly associate with documentaries about The Little Rock 9 . Yet she stuck it out , was a leader among her peers , and carried those same leadership skills into Smith College , where she was , again , one of two Black women in her graduating class . While she excelled academically and was remembered fondly by her peers , there was one thing that she was completely clear about while I was growing up — I would never , ever attend boarding school . Yet , until she died , she remained connected to her boarding school , and , sometime later , I found that they had printed her obituary in their alumni magazine . I often wondered how much her school ’ s

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