The History of Black Women at Cornell: A Conversation with Marcia Easley

This Women's History Month, Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. spoke with Marcia Easley, a long-time Ithacan and Assistant Dean for Human Resources in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. Marcia told us about the history of Black women at Cornell and students like Ruth Peyton, who could study, but not sleep, here. Marcia shares the struggles and accomplishments of Black students, the nonlinear path of inclusion and segregation, and how knowing our history can help us do better.

 

Links to further reading from our discussion:

• We discussed Black women and human rights in February with Keisha Blain
• Letters to and from Livingston Farrand, Cornell’s president from 1921–1937
• In 1969, Black students at Cornell took over Willard Straight Hall
• Jane Eleanor Datcher was the first known Black woman to earn an undergraduate degree from Cornell
• Residency at Sage College wasn’t always offered to all
• Portrait of Ruth Peyton, Class of 1931
• A historian reflects on Black students as “part and apart” at Cornell
• The political construction of systemic racism informs institutional decisions
• Neil Lewis, Jr. researches how people make meaning in a fragmented democracy and Jamila Michener wrote a book on those consequences for democracy
• Black women have been experiencing massive unemployment rates, and particularly in 2025

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