Lawyer Brown Sylvester Smith was one of the many U-M alumni impacted by the history of slavery. He went on to use his legal knowledge to push back against discrimination.

Born to two enslaved parents in Arkansas, Smith was only around two years old when slavery first began to end in the United States. He lost his parents at a young age, and went on to work on a farm in Illinois, where he saved up money to attend university.

After graduating from U-M with his law degree in 1886, Smith spent much of his life as a lawyer in Kansas City, where he battled segregation in the courtroom, and became a City Council member.

Smith also went on to become one of the very first members of the Niagara Movement, an organization started to advocate for civil rights for African Americans by W.E.B. Dubois and William Monroe Trotter (namesake of U-M’s Trotter Multicultural Center @umtrottermc.)

Today on Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day that enslaved African Americans finally gained freedom, we honor his life, as well the many other lives harmed by slavery`s legacy.

📸: 1886 Law School portrait composite, and the U-M Photo Vertical File

#Juneteenth #UMich #BlackHistory #History #StudentLife #Alumni #NiagaraMovement ...

Did you know? This year marks the 20th anniversary of U-M softball’s first national championship! ⭐

U-M and UCLA battled it out with a tied score until the 10th inning, when Samantha Findlay hit a home run, winning the national championship for Michigan!

It was an exciting victory, but Findlay was more excited to celebrate her teammates, telling the Michigan Daily: “I would take this team over any individual awards, because this team has meant the world to me.” Since then, softball, and women’s athletics at large, have only grown.

Following the winning tradition of their teammates before them, U-M softball alumni Sierra Romero, playing with the Volts (@ausl_volts), and Lauren Derkowski, playing with the Talons (@ausl_talons), will both compete professionally in Athletes Unlimited Softball League’s inaugural season this year!

Good luck to Sierra Romero and Lauren Derkowski, and Go Blue! 💙

These national championship photos, and others like them, are being added to the U-M Athletic Department collection by our amazing student fellows through the Peikert Fellowship, made possible by Fran and Michael Peikert.

📸: Photos by Jackson Laizure & Amir Gamzu, Athletic Department collection

#UMich #Softball #GoBlue #ProBlue #AUSL #SportsHistory #NationalChampionship ...

On this day exactly 100 years ago, the U-M Lawyers Club was officially dedicated!

The Lawyers Club was the very first part of the Law Quad to be completed. Several law deans from across the U.S. gave speeches, and a letter from William W. Cook, who funded the Law Quad, was read aloud for the occasion.

(Cook himself refused to visit in person. He preferred to picture the Law Quad in his own imagination, describing the space as a “dream.”)

With gothic architectural features like arched windows of cathedral glass, and stone carvings, the Lawyers Club was created as a beautiful space for students, the first group of whom had already started living there in 1924!

Today, the Lawyers Club is still home to JD and LLM students of U-M’s Law School during the academic year, and the Law Quad remains a beloved space on U-M’s Ann Arbor campus!

You can learn more about the Law Quad’s early history with the Law School records in the archives, and with books like “Giving it All Away: The Story of William W. Cook & His Michigan Law Quadrangle” by Law Librarian Emerita Margaret Leary.

📸: Images sourced from the U-M Photo Vertical File, the book “Addresses Delivered at the Dedication of the Lawyers Club,” and the Michigan Daily Digital Archives

#UMich #OTD #100YearsAgo #LawQuad #LawyersClub #LawSchool #MichiganHistory ...

Throwback to June of 1959, when singer Marian Anderson made U-M history not once, but twice, as both the first African American and the first woman to be U-M’s main commencement speaker!

A Civil Rights activist, Marian Anderson famously pushed back against segregation by performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, when she was denied the chance to sing in Constitution Hall. She went on to win the United Nations Peace Prize, a Congressional Gold Medal, and many other awards for her lifetime of work as a singer and barrier breaker!

She wished U-M graduates "a full, rich life of wonderful service." According to the Michigan Alumnus at the time, her commencement speech at U-M was described as "tremendously sincere, and very well done."

After her speech, she was granted an honorary doctorate in music from U-M!

Click through to see some newspaper clippings about her commencement speech, and see our Commencement Addresses web page for more details.

📸: News & Information Photographs, Michigan Daily Archives

#TBT #UMich #MarianAnderson #MichiganHistory #DidYouKnow #Throwback ...