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This Week in Princeton History for April 3-9


In this week’s installment of our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its faculty, students, and alumni, a trespasser is found cooking eggs, the campus mourns Martin Luther King, Jr., and more.

April 3, 1958—While out of town on a trip with the team, Princeton University baseball trainer Fred “Bobo” Holmes saves a woman from bleeding to death after a stabbing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

April 5, 1985—A man found cooking eggs in the Graduate Annex is arrested for trespassing. He is said to be a “habitual offender.”

April 6, 1931—During a debate broadcast over the radio, J. R. Mitchell ’32 argues “That the emergence of women from the home is a deplorable feature of modern life.”

April 9, 1968—Due to activism on the part of the Association for Black Collegians, Princeton University suspends normal operations to memorialize assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. While classes are not held, the U-Store is closed, and libraries delay opening until 3:00PM, small group interracial dialogue seminars follow a meeting with an overflow audience in Alexander Hall. An impassioned plea from Alfred D. Price ’69 receives a standing ovation from the more than 1,200 attendees: “White America does not realize what the black community feels they have at stake. … we don’t have any answers. Neither do you. We’ve got to find answers together.”

Marion Sleet ’69 at a vigil for Martin Luther King, Jr. in Princeton, 1968. Alfred D. Price ’69 says this may have been on the same day as the interracial dialogue seminars: “At the end of the day all of us who had been discussion leaders met up on the front steps of Nassau Hall and I remember Doc Fields having us form a circle and joining hands with our hands crossed in front of us and then clasping the hand of each guy next to us. And there were, I don’t know, 40 or so of us present. And I remember Doc [Carl A.] Fields leading a kind of prayer … And so there we were, all of us standing on the front stoop of Nassau Hall with our hands joined and Fields using that as a teaching moment for us. Why didn’t we join hands sooner? I think that was that day and that’s how that day concluded, but I will never forget the experience. Powerful.” Princeton Alumni Weekly Photograph Collection (AC126), Box 38.
For last week’s installment in this series, click here.

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