Palmer Stadium opened at Princeton University in 1914 and served as the university’s football stadium for more than eighty years. Its history paralleled an era in which Princeton, like many American institutions, largely excluded Black students and athletes; the university did not award an undergraduate degree to a Black student until 1947. Palmer Stadium closed in 1996 and was demolished in 1998 to make way for a new stadium.

I photographed Palmer Stadium before I understood how its history connected to Princeton’s long exclusion of Black students. That has become an important part of the way I think about this entire project: I often photographed first and understood later. Research changes what I see in photographs I may have made decades earlier.