To jump-start Black History Month, St. Anselm's Abbey School in Michigan Park hosted an exhibit last week on the trials and successes of black classical scholars from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

The collection of photos and documents, titled "12 Black Classicists," was organized by Michele Valerie Ronnick, an associate professor in the Department of Classics, Greek, and Latin at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Despite the title, the collection recognizes 13 classicists: Edward Wilmot Blyden, Richard Theodore Greener, William Sanders Scarborough, James Monroe Gregory, Frazelia Campbell, Wiley Lane, William Henry Crogman, John Wesley Gilbert, Daniel Barclay Williams, Lewis Baxter Moore, Reuben Shannon Lovinggood, George Morton Lightfoot and Helen Maria Chesnutt.

The parents, faculty and at least one student at the school were impressed.

"It portrays that there were African Americans that understood classics," said Solomon Brown, an eighth-grader.

Jane Brinley, chair of classical and modern languages at St. Anselm's, said teaching students about scholars who studied the classics is an integral part of their education. St. Anselm's students are required to take Latin.

"A lot of kids think of classics as a 'white thing,' " Brinley said. "It's not. It's a human thing."

Brinley said that in the post-Civil War period, when some of the featured classicists began making strides in their field, many Americans did not think African Americans were capable of learning Greek and Latin. Learning these subjects after the war "was a political statement," Brinley said.

One significance of the photographs is that they show African Americans in a light not usually portrayed at the time, said W. Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress and father of a St. Anselm's student. The viewer gets a sense of wealth from the clothing and decor in the pictures. The pictures "show this contrast to the stereotypical image," Eubanks said.

Ronnick said Chesnutt was added to the exhibit after it began touring in 2003. She decided to keep the name, she explained, because it had already become known as "12 Black Classicists." The exhibit appeared at Georgetown University in October and will continue to travel across the country.