Bryn Mawr College’s first Black graduate had to walk a mile to get to class. A new monument honors her journey.
D.C. artist Nekisha Durrett first took the “Black at Bryn Mawr” walking tour at Bryn Mawr College in February 2023. It was there that she learned about Enid Cook who, like her, graduated from Dunbar High School in D.C., considered one of the first academically elite public high schools for Black students in the country.
Cook went on to become the college‘s first Black graduate in 1931. She studied chemistry and biology.
Despite the wishes of former college president M. Carey Thomas and other faculty who rejected the idea of admitting Black students, Cook was permitted to enroll in the women’s college in 1927.
On her admission to the college, Thomas and her successor Marion Park barred the future microbiologist from living on campus, forcing Cook to walk roughly one mile to and from class.
“I do not myself feel it would be wise to admit a colored student into residence at Bryn Mawr at the present moment … I should perhaps add that Miss Cook’s passing the entire series of examinations at one time so successfully as to put her ahead of a long waiting list would seem to me in the case of any applicant very unlikely,” Park wrote in a letter to the Quaker activist Paul H. Douglas, who was advocating for Cook’s admission to Bryn Mawr.
On April 24, on that same campus, Durrett’s Don’t Forget to Remember (Me), was unveiled to a crowd of students, faculty, and residents, who marveled at both the size and detail of the public art work.
The monument, a “woven” pathway of custom clay bricks, forms a “square knot,” symbolizing an unbreakable connection and commitment to honor all of Bryn Mawr’s history.
Don’t Forget honors Cook and the Black servants and groundskeepers who maintained the campus during the early 1900s. It spans a 5,800-square-foot area, roughly the same length as Cook’s commute to Bryn Mawr.
“This campus was literally built on the backs of Black men and women, and that labor has been unrecognized as it always is,” Durrett said. “It was unrecognized and uncelebrated until Black students wanted to take on the responsibility of bringing their contributions to light.”
Rather than a single, elevated monument “frozen in time,” Durrett, a Cooper Union alumna, said she wanted something more dynamic and timely.
Among the pathway’s roughly 10,000 pavers are those engraved with the names of 248 Black workers and staff members whose contributions were hidden or “erased” by the college.
Each brick is glazed with soil from Perry House, a Black cultural center that was established after student protests in 1972, demanding a more inclusive curriculum and staff, and a culture house.
“The times that we‘re going through right now, we‘re witnessing the blatant attempt to erase and twist history,” Durrett said. “This has always been happening, which is job security for me because these stories are going to be uncovered.”
The monument is situated in the Cloisters of the Old Library, an enclosed space where the ashes of Thomas were scattered after her death. The library was once named after Thomas.
Bryn Mawr Africana Studies and Museum Anthropology professor Monique Scott said the space is a “haunting” location for many Black students.
“Students let us know that the Cloisters was a space where they didn’t feel welcome, and felt kind of heavy for them,” Scott said. “And with [Durrett’s] artwork, we‘re hoping that will shift that energy. It‘s about making Black and brown students feel very welcome here and in this space.”
Thomas, who died in 1935, rejected Black students and potential workers from entering the college, fearing their presence would tarnish its reputation. And for those who made it to campus, she attempted to limit their visibility.
Below the Cloisters are service tunnels, where live-in domestic servants and other personal staff worked.
Given the college‘s complicated history, Scott said students, faculty, and staff have conjured ways to uncover Bryn Mawr’s “untold stories” through the Art Remediating Campus Histories (ARCH) Project.
Following a student-led strike in 2020, Scott said, students, faculty, and staff established oral history projects, walking tours, and accessibility initiatives to unravel the hidden or misrepresented elements of Bryn Mawr’s history.
Among students’ demands was the installation of a public artwork that represented inclusivity. Durrett’s proposal was picked out of 110 applications.
Her previous works include “And The Ancestors Say…," located in D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts; “We See You” at New York’s Times Square; and “Magnolia,” which memorializes Black women who were murdered by law enforcement.
“From the beginning, it was so profound, amazing, emotional, and powerful. It was so many things,” Scott said.
Don’t Forget was built in partnership with Philly’s Monument Lab, a nonprofit public art, history, and design studio. Durrett was assisted by a group of student researchers, who dug into the school’s archives to find the names and origins of the school’s Black students and laborers.
From the dust-covered documents to charred-edged time cards from the 1900s to the ’30s, they discovered former porters, waitresses, and groundskeepers who had worked on campus. Some were from the Philly region, and others had ventured from as far as Virginia to study and work at the university.
Given Durrett’s “profound brilliance” and willingness to work so closely with Bryn Mawr students and department leaders, Monument Lab director Paul Farber said the monument came out just as he envisioned.
“A monument doesn’t just have to tell us about our past. But it can be done in a way that’s expansive and inviting,” Farber said. “Leave it to an artist like [Durrett] to respond in the most thoughtful and critical ways, and open up history anew in expansive terms.”
While Durrett understands one monument won’t rid the world of racism or discrimination, she‘s hopeful the path inspires future students, faculty, staff, and alums to continue honoring the Bryn Mawr’s full history and remember the names embossed on the clay bricks.
