A new database lists the names and years of attendance of every African American student who enrolled at the University between 1853-1956. It features anecdotes, autobiographies, and biographies — and reveals some significant family legacies.

When Fielding Yost infamously benched Michigan’s best player during one football game in 1934, he set in motion a one-dimensional narrative about the athlete. Now a digital exhibit at the Bentley explores Willis Ward’s expansive and complicated legacy.

An African-American student of the 1920s left a vivid memoir of his years in a semi-segregated Ann Arbor.

Lyman T. Johnson, MA ’33, was the grandson of former slaves. He integrated the University of Kentucky five years before Brown v. Board of Education.