Bowdoin’s first African American graduate (class of 1826), after whom the John Brown Russwurm Afro-American Center is named, was among the nation’s first three African Americans to graduate from institutions of higher education. In 1827, Russwurm went on to found the Freedom’s Journal, the country’s first black newspaper. He later became Mayor of the Maryland section of Liberia, a colony in Africa for freed slaves.