Part I: Photos

"There's a different kind of wisdom you need to have, being a black person on campus."

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.
2011-2012 school year.
5,160 undergraduate students. 
approximately 380 black men and women.  
approximately 150 black men.

My purpose in this photo essay is to document real stories of black undergraduate male students at Princeton University. All of the students I spoke with noted that their overall experiences at Princeton have been positive, yet there have been instances where they have felt alienated, targeted or uncomfortable. 

The voice of the black make student at Princeton is one left behind. Here is a peek into the perspectives of eight students.

"There's actually not that much of a black male experience at Princeton, unfortunately. It's hard to have an experience with [such a] limited number of people in that community." 

"Coming from a high school with not many black students, I was eager to get involved in the black community... I found that the black community was a little bit weaker than I expected, but I and many others have been working to strengthen it through groups like Black Men's Awareness Group (BMAG), Princeton Association of Black Women and Black Student Union (BSU)."

"Even if it's not as obvious in the way people treat you, I feel like you do get the feeling that you're an African American student on campus, and kind of grouped together."

"During late meal especially... there will be a pocket of black people talking, and then everyone else around them... and in lecture halls you'll see pockets of black people sitting next to each other."

"When you read the newspaper, of course you flip to the sports section, we're there, but you never really hear anything positive coming from the black community... There [are] definitely positive things going on, but you just never hear about it."

"I think one of the biggest shocks I had was touring eating clubs and looking at pictures of the groups and I was kind of shocked to see that in an entire club, you may have three or four black people. "

"It kind of feels like there  are different spheres operating on campus sometimes. You're kind of just a person going through each different sphere. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't."

"Especially among the black community, there's a lot of unhappiness here. You talk to a lot of people and they'll say the same thing: 'I'm not happy here, I'm just not enjoying my experience.' One time the BSU had a big meeting and they asked the question, 'Why are we not happy here?' and we never got to a good conclusion."