First Black Woman To Graduate Framingham State To Get Dorm Honor

FRAMINGHAM, MA — A request to rename a dorm after Framingham State University's first black woman graduate that started as a student effort was approved by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education recently.

In 2018, FSU students circulated a petition asking that the new North Hall dorm be renamed Mary Miles Bibb Hall. Bibb was the first black woman to graduate from the school in 1843, back when Framingham State was called the Lexington Normal School.

FSU's Board of Trustees approved the renaming in 2018, but it wasn't official until the state Board of Higher Education signed off on Oct. 22.

"I am really proud of the fact that this idea came from our students," FSU President F. Javier Cevallos said in a statement. "They deserve the credit. It was a terrific idea that we were all very excited to support."

Bibb became a teacher after graduating FSU and worked in Boston, New York, and Ohio. She married abolitionist and author Henry Bibb in 1847, and the couple were active in the Underground Railroad. They were forced to move to Canada in 1850 when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed — a federal law that established a system in the courts for returning slaves who had fled to northern states. The Bibbs published the Voice of the Fugitive, the first newspaper serving black people who fled to Canada to escape slavery.

FSU is planning a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for Mary Miles Bibb Hall. North Hall was built in 2011 and is home to about 450 students.