In the late 1820s, African Americans' access to primary and religious instruction expanded significantly throughout the urban Northeast, yet barriers to their higher education remained firm. Segregated in public "African" schools, blacks were also barred from most private academies. Collegiate education similarly remained out of reach. In response, an alliance of black and white abolitionists launched a campaign to build a separate "African" college in 1831. Two ministers, one black, Peter Williams from New York, the other white, Simeon Jocelyn from New Haven, led the endeavor. After much consideration, they selected New Haven, Connecticut to house the new institution, believing that in "no place in the Union" is the "situation [of blacks] more comfortable, or the prejudices of a community weaker against them. Upon learning of the proposal, New Haven's mayor, Dennis Kimberly, assembled an opposition in less than three days. On September 8, 1831, he summoned a city meeting wherein over 700 white New Haveners swarmed city hall. After just a few hours of discussion, New Haven townsmen rejected the proposal by a vote of 700 to 4. Their swift, unified declaration ended the first movement to create a separate black college in America. In order to comprehend white New Haveners' resistance to black higher education, this article explores the college proposal of the two abolitionists in detail. (Contains 87 footnotes.)