It was a college that admitted students regardless of their backgrounds, advertising in 1871:The old and young can enter at this Institution any day, no distinction made in regard to race or color.

Parties having ordinary ability, who have entirely neglected their education now have the opportunity to qualify themselves for almost any position in the State, in an incredible short time.

For example, Louis André Martinet, an 1876 graduate of Straight University Law School, published The Crusader—a civil rights daily; co-founded the Comité des Citoyens (Citizens' Committee) in New Orleans, which worked for civil rights; and played a significant role in setting up the challenge to segregation of Plessy v. Ferguson, a landmark Supreme Court case.

[2] His classmate Dan Desdunes joined him in this effort before moving to North Omaha, Nebraska, to become a band leader.

[4][page needed] Some graduates brought education and medical care to African Americans during the early part of the 20th century.

Ambassador to Liberia); Mary Booze (first African American to sit on the Republican National Committee, serving from Mississippi from 1924 to 1948); Alice Dunbar Nelson, forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance; and Theodore K. Lawless, a dermatologist and philanthropist.