Mohamed Diallo ’26 reassembles the story of Yale’s early Black students with archival research and ArcGIS mapping

As a Community Engagement intern at Beinecke Library, Mohamed Diallo ’26 played a central role in the creation of the online resource “Shining Light on Truth: Early Black Students at Yale.” The website features profiles of Black students who attended Yale from 1830 to 1940— the first known comprehensive effort to identify the Black students in Yale’s history.  

The online project grew out of research for the book “Yale and Slavery: A History”—by David W. Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University—and the “Shining Light on Truth” exhibitions produced by Beinecke Library at the New Haven Museum and the Schwarzman Center.

Piecing together history

To gather biographical information about Yale’s early Black students, Diallo did extensive research in Yale University, New Haven, and regional archives. The university did not specify race in its student records. Instead, Diallo had to piece together information in primary sources—including newspaper clippings from local papers and historically Black newspapers, such as “The New York Freedman”—that offered clues to the identities and experiences of former and prospective Black students who attended Yale schools. “Because of his methodical efforts, I would estimate that Mohamed identified and researched about 100 students that were not in the original profiles prepared for the exhibit at the New Haven museum,” said Jennifer Coggins, Beinecke Library’s Community Engagement Archivist.

Working with issues of the annual Yale Catalogue and other sources, Diallo created Excel spreadsheets of nearly 250 students, years of attendance, addresses, and shared addresses. Working with historic maps, he also created a digital ArcGIS map that tracks the location of students’ housing during their time at Yale. The map provides insight into the students’ social networks, Yale’s housing policies, and New Haven’s willingness to board Black students throughout the period. The interactive map is included in the online exhibition.  

“One of the highlights of this project has been the opportunity to learn so much about the history of New Haven and Yale University,” Diallo said. “I enjoyed spotlighting how Yale’s earliest Black students shaped both the city and the university, and how the students themselves were in turn shaped by them.” 

Building skills

“Mohamed taught himself the technical aspects of the geographic information system so as to accomplish the mapping work for the website—an accomplishment that creates the opportunity for research across many fields of study,” said Charles “Chaz” Warner, Community Engagement Program Manager at Beinecke Library. “His contributions have been impressive, notable, and priceless.” Warner began working with Diallo in 2024, when Diallo and the rest of the Beinecke Community Engagement team began its work on the exhibition.  

“Mohamed’s work to map student addresses is particularly notable,” Coggins said, “both for the quality of his work and for the fact that he initiated, planned, and executed the work independently, learning new technical skills along the way.” 

Diallo’s discoveries while researching “Shining Light on Truth” led to his senior thesis, “A Black Civilizing Mission: William Pickens, Captain Charles Young, and African American Support for U.S. Imperialism in Haiti, 1900—1915.” William Pickens, YC 1804, is one of the early Black Yale students featured in the exhibition and online resource. 

Diallo has been a student library employee for all four years at Yale. “I will cherish the relationships I have made within the Yale Library system and the many awesome people I got to interact with because of the ‘Shining Light on Truth’ project,” Diallo said. “I know for certain that I will be a lifelong patron of Yale’s libraries.” 

This year, Diallo and fellow graduates were recognized for their contributions to the library with an end-of-year celebration. Each student was honored with a commemorative bookplate placed in the book of their choice. Diallo chose George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” as the book that will return to the library shelves with his name and graduation year inscribed.

Explore the online resource “Shining Light on Truth: Early Black Students at Yale.”

Watch the Mondays at Beinecke YouTube video to learn about Diallo’s research and mapping and about the remarkable story of Viola Blanche Goin. 

Read more about the ongoing research on early Black Yale students in the article by Hope McGrath, Beinecke Library’s research coordinator for Yale, New Haven, and Connecticut history 

—Deborah Cannarella

Image: Mohamed Diallo ’26 and Charles “Chaz” Warner at the Yale Library Graduating Student Employee Celebration, photo by Harold Shapiro