Richard Theodore Greener

First black graduate of Harvard College

Richard Theodore Greener was a pioneering African-American scholar, excelling in elocution, philosophy, law and classics in the Reconstruction era. In 1870, he became the first black undergraduate at Harvard University to receive a bachelor's degree.

The previous year, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine awarded degrees to their first black graduates in 1869.