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Credit: Photo by: F.J. Higgins
Bessie Nelms Hill, the first
African-American to serve on the Rutgers
Board of Governors, pictured in 1965,
the day she was appointed to the board.
Mason W. Gross, Rutgers president from
1959 to 1971, is right, and board member
C. Douglas Dillon, former U.S. secretary
of the treasury, left. The Newark
campus will rededicate Hill Hall to
honor Hill, a tireless activist who
worked to promote equality, at a public
ceremony Oct. 20.
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Arts and science majors on the Newark campus spend many hours in Hill Hall, a major humanities and social sciences building.
But ask a handful of those students why it is named Hill Hall, and most speculate that the name comes from its location: atop the steep hill at Warren Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Few realize it is named for Bessie Nelms Hill, and even fewer know who she was.
But that will change Oct. 20, when the current generation of campus leaders, faculty and students pause to remember a pioneering New Jersey educator and community leader from a previous generation. On that day, the campus will again dedicate Hill Hall to honor Hill, the first African-American to serve on Rutgers’ board of governors. The public ceremony will include the unveiling of Hill’s portrait, which will be permanently displayed in the building, and remembrances of Hill, who died in 1981 at 83.
Hill was a tireless activist who worked to promote equality and secure the rights of African-Americans throughout the state and nation. She once served as state secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Hill also was one of the founders of the Montgomery Branch YWCA and the Carver Center YMCA, both in Trenton, and a life member of the board of governors of the Trenton Council of Human Relations.
As an English teacher and guidance counselor in Trenton for 40 years, Hill was credited with inspiring and helping thousands of students – including one young man, David Dinkins, who went on to become mayor of New York City. Dinkins paid tribute to Hill during a May visit to the Newark campus.
But it was Hill’s six years of dedicated service on the Rutgers BOG, from 1965 to 1971, that were recognized and honored in 1972, when Hill Hall opened its doors following its first dedication ceremony. Hill Hall, which houses classrooms, faculty and administration offices and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Newark (FAS-N) dean’s office, was constructed at a cost of $5.3 million.
The rededication of Hill Hall is the latest celebration of a campus milestone that impacts today’s students. Last year, the campus honored the student activists who had taken over Conklin Hall in 1969 to protest the scarcity of black students, black faculty and minority-oriented academic programs on campus. This academic year FAS-N marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of Dana College and the tradition of strong liberal arts and sciences on the Newark campus. Dana College was one of the educational institutions that merged to form Rutgers-Newark’s predecessor, the University of Newark, in the 1930s.
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