Richard Henry Greene

Richard Henry Greene (1833–1877) was the first African American to graduate from Yale University. After a brief stint as a schoolteacher, he worked mainly as a medical doctor in Hoosick, New York. During the American Civil War, he received an MD from Dartmouth and served as an acting assistant surgeon in the United States Navy. Since 2014, research has unearthed documents about his life and two photographs, which shed light on his personal views, racial identity, personal and professional life, and death.

To prepare for admission to college, Greene studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics with Lucius Wooster Fitch, an 1840 graduate of Yale and a son of the Yale College pastor. He entered Yale in 1853 and he commuted from his home in a Black neighborhood, which caused him to be marked late for its 6 a.m. mandatory prayer service, or for class, for which he was apparently excused. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1857. After graduating, Greene taught school in Milford, Connecticut, and after a year and a half took a teaching job at the Bennington Seminary in Bennington, Vermont. According to Yale's journalist, he was a "respected physician" as indicated by a letter from a Connecticut patient, "I felt a confidence in you which I do not entertain toward any physician near us." The Greene collection was donated by William Reese, a Yale alumnus and rare book collector.