Daughter of Jean Allen and Garland Dishman. A model student, she graduated 2nd in a class of 500. Her friends and family were shocked that she died of a heroin overdose.
New York Times, Feb. 2, 1970
Two weeks ago, a bright, pretty Barnard freshman named Antoinette Dishman joined other black militants in a demonstration to force St. Luke's Hospital to open a program for teen‐aged heroin addicts.
Saturday morning, in a small apartment in a rundown area of the Bronx, Antoinette Dishman died after inhaling an overdose of heroin. She was 17 years old.
Yesterday, Barnard mourned the loss of a model student. On the seventh floor of Hewitt Hall, where Miss Dishman lived with 27 other black freshmen, her friends were shocked.
As far as anyone knew, Miss Dishman had had no involvement with drugs—not even marijuana smoking—up to the time of her death.
"It's terrifying," said one classmate. "She didn't deserve that. Because we're black, we all know about heroin and its dangers and just because of this knowledge I always thought we were protected from it. It's not as if we're some white girl sniffing for the first time out of ignorance."
Dr. Martha E. Peterson, the president of the women's college at 116th Street and Broadway, said: "The entire Barnard community is saddened by Toni Dishman's tragic death.
"She was esteemed by all who had come to know her during her one semester at the college. The needless waste of a young life concerns us all, both youth and adults. It should lead us to a redoubling of our efforts to understand the dangers of drugs and the need to control their use."
"Other girls," a classmate said yesterday, "used to say they wanted to try this or try that, but Toni never did. I honestly don't think she was that interested at all in drugs."
"She was a very lovely young lady, a superb student," said Theodore H. Lewis, the principal of Harlan High School in Chicago, from which Miss Dishman graduated last June ranked second in a class of more than 500. "If you told me that she was involved with drugs I'd say you had to be out of your mind."
At the high school on the South Side, she was known as a bright, articulate girl with happy family background, member of the student council, the band, the honor society, the newspaper.
"She had everything going for her—brains, attractiveness, leadership," Mr. Lewis said. "She was A‐1 material. If she were a boy, you'd have to say that in 10 years she was going to be at the very top."
At Barnard, she fit quickly into its black militant society and BOSS—the Black Organization of Soul Sisters.
"All the parties we go to are black parties," said one of Miss Dishman's close friends. "Our lives are black. Some people call us militant; we call ourselves nationalist. All the guys we date are black. Me, I've never had any social contact with whites. To me, Harlem is like home."
"She used to know how to handle people," a friend said of Miss Dishman's relations with whites. "She never misplaced her hostility. She was rather friendly with some white people, but she preferred to be with blacks as we all do."
The girl and her friends lived outside the white world of Barnard and neighboring Columbia.
"This school is one of the last bastions of everything that's proper," said a classmate. "But I don't think we black students are as threatened by the Barnard‐Columbia thing as the white kids. To us it's just an extension of the Establishment, and we've been fighting that all our lives."
Miss Dishman took courses in chemistry, English, Russian, calculus and biology, and was doing well in them.
Friends said that when she came to Barnard she tended toward the tomboy, playing basketball and talking about sports. Under the teasing of her companions on the seventh floor through the fall and winter, she became, in the words of one, "an elegant, chic young woman." Her hair was cut in the Afro style and she wore bell‐bottom slacks and mod clothes.
"She was really happy because she was becoming sexy and she was becoming a part of our floor," a friend said. "Her world was getting bigger."
Miss Dishman, who turned 17 last fall, was the youngest girl on her floor and one of the youngest at the college. Her companions, in the words of one, considered her "our baby."
While going out with her new friends and dating frequently, she also kept close touch with home. She received food packages from her mother and talked often about her brothers and sisters.
About 11 P.M. Friday, Miss Dishman and a group of friends went to a party near the campus. Those who attended refused to discuss it yesterday after consulting a lawyer. But one girl who heard about it said, "It was so crowded and there were so many drugs around they were afraid there would he a bust."
Students yesterday said it was rare for anyone at Barnard or Columbia to become in volved with heroin, although the use of marijuana was common.
"I know there's marijuana and hash [hashish, a marijuana derivative] all around," said girl on Miss Dishman's floor, "but the hardest thing I ever heard of people taking is coke [cocaine]. Nobody takes heroin, even at off campus parties."
The only recorded case of heroin use at Barnard or Columbia in recent years occurred in June, 1968, when two Columbia freshmen were suspended after being charged with using the drug. Last March, Fairleigh S. Dickinson 3d died in a Columbia dormitory after taking a combination of opium and LSD.
Miss Dishman and her friends returned from the party about 3 A.M. She left again soon afterward to go to the Bronx apartment of some youths she had met that evening.
One of Miss Dishman's friends told the police later that three couples made up the party at 1205 College Avenue, near 167th Street in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. The apartment, occupied by two college students, is in an area somewhere between slum and middle‐class.
The friend said the couples danced and talked until 5:30, when they decided to "turn on." The participants then went to sleep. When they tried to awake Miss Dishman at about 10 A.M., she was dead.
The girl showed the common effects of a heroin overdose — froth at the nose and mouth, congestion of the internal organs, edema of the lungs. "Her lungs were almost like you see in drowning cases," said Dr. Milton Helpern, the Chief Medical Examiner.
Effects of Overdose
Miss Dishman's friend called the police when she found she could not awaken the girl. In the apartment, the police found 3 ounces of heroin, envelopes of marijuana and materials for diluting heroin in preparation for its sale. They also found a revolver, two rifles and two shotguns.
The police arrested the apartment's two occupants— Wayne Brewington, 19, a student at City College, and Reggie Blackwell, 22, a student at Bronx Community College. They were being held in $7,500 bail yesterday. An assistant district attorney said their apartment appeared to be "a regular factory" for drug preparation.
At the building yesterday, teen‐aged girl said the two youths held frequent parties. "I know that Reggie," the girl said. "He's like, you know, real cool."
The Medical Examiner's office said early today that no member of the family had yet appeared to identify the body.
Miss Dishman's body was taken to the morgue, and her name—as case No. 483—was placed in the register along with the three other people, all under 30, who died of heroin overdoses in the city this week end and the seven who died From causes related to drug use since Friday.
New York Times, Feb. 2, 1970
Two weeks ago, a bright, pretty Barnard freshman named Antoinette Dishman joined other black militants in a demonstration to force St. Luke's Hospital to open a program for teen‐aged heroin addicts.
Saturday morning, in a small apartment in a rundown area of the Bronx, Antoinette Dishman died after inhaling an overdose of heroin. She was 17 years old.
Yesterday, Barnard mourned the loss of a model student. On the seventh floor of Hewitt Hall, where Miss Dishman lived with 27 other black freshmen, her friends were shocked.
As far as anyone knew, Miss Dishman had had no involvement with drugs—not even marijuana smoking—up to the time of her death.
"It's terrifying," said one classmate. "She didn't deserve that. Because we're black, we all know about heroin and its dangers and just because of this knowledge I always thought we were protected from it. It's not as if we're some white girl sniffing for the first time out of ignorance."
Dr. Martha E. Peterson, the president of the women's college at 116th Street and Broadway, said: "The entire Barnard community is saddened by Toni Dishman's tragic death.
"She was esteemed by all who had come to know her during her one semester at the college. The needless waste of a young life concerns us all, both youth and adults. It should lead us to a redoubling of our efforts to understand the dangers of drugs and the need to control their use."
"Other girls," a classmate said yesterday, "used to say they wanted to try this or try that, but Toni never did. I honestly don't think she was that interested at all in drugs."
"She was a very lovely young lady, a superb student," said Theodore H. Lewis, the principal of Harlan High School in Chicago, from which Miss Dishman graduated last June ranked second in a class of more than 500. "If you told me that she was involved with drugs I'd say you had to be out of your mind."
At the high school on the South Side, she was known as a bright, articulate girl with happy family background, member of the student council, the band, the honor society, the newspaper.
"She had everything going for her—brains, attractiveness, leadership," Mr. Lewis said. "She was A‐1 material. If she were a boy, you'd have to say that in 10 years she was going to be at the very top."
At Barnard, she fit quickly into its black militant society and BOSS—the Black Organization of Soul Sisters.
"All the parties we go to are black parties," said one of Miss Dishman's close friends. "Our lives are black. Some people call us militant; we call ourselves nationalist. All the guys we date are black. Me, I've never had any social contact with whites. To me, Harlem is like home."
"She used to know how to handle people," a friend said of Miss Dishman's relations with whites. "She never misplaced her hostility. She was rather friendly with some white people, but she preferred to be with blacks as we all do."
The girl and her friends lived outside the white world of Barnard and neighboring Columbia.
"This school is one of the last bastions of everything that's proper," said a classmate. "But I don't think we black students are as threatened by the Barnard‐Columbia thing as the white kids. To us it's just an extension of the Establishment, and we've been fighting that all our lives."
Miss Dishman took courses in chemistry, English, Russian, calculus and biology, and was doing well in them.
Friends said that when she came to Barnard she tended toward the tomboy, playing basketball and talking about sports. Under the teasing of her companions on the seventh floor through the fall and winter, she became, in the words of one, "an elegant, chic young woman." Her hair was cut in the Afro style and she wore bell‐bottom slacks and mod clothes.
"She was really happy because she was becoming sexy and she was becoming a part of our floor," a friend said. "Her world was getting bigger."
Miss Dishman, who turned 17 last fall, was the youngest girl on her floor and one of the youngest at the college. Her companions, in the words of one, considered her "our baby."
While going out with her new friends and dating frequently, she also kept close touch with home. She received food packages from her mother and talked often about her brothers and sisters.
About 11 P.M. Friday, Miss Dishman and a group of friends went to a party near the campus. Those who attended refused to discuss it yesterday after consulting a lawyer. But one girl who heard about it said, "It was so crowded and there were so many drugs around they were afraid there would he a bust."
Students yesterday said it was rare for anyone at Barnard or Columbia to become in volved with heroin, although the use of marijuana was common.
"I know there's marijuana and hash [hashish, a marijuana derivative] all around," said girl on Miss Dishman's floor, "but the hardest thing I ever heard of people taking is coke [cocaine]. Nobody takes heroin, even at off campus parties."
The only recorded case of heroin use at Barnard or Columbia in recent years occurred in June, 1968, when two Columbia freshmen were suspended after being charged with using the drug. Last March, Fairleigh S. Dickinson 3d died in a Columbia dormitory after taking a combination of opium and LSD.
Miss Dishman and her friends returned from the party about 3 A.M. She left again soon afterward to go to the Bronx apartment of some youths she had met that evening.
One of Miss Dishman's friends told the police later that three couples made up the party at 1205 College Avenue, near 167th Street in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. The apartment, occupied by two college students, is in an area somewhere between slum and middle‐class.
The friend said the couples danced and talked until 5:30, when they decided to "turn on." The participants then went to sleep. When they tried to awake Miss Dishman at about 10 A.M., she was dead.
The girl showed the common effects of a heroin overdose — froth at the nose and mouth, congestion of the internal organs, edema of the lungs. "Her lungs were almost like you see in drowning cases," said Dr. Milton Helpern, the Chief Medical Examiner.
Effects of Overdose
Miss Dishman's friend called the police when she found she could not awaken the girl. In the apartment, the police found 3 ounces of heroin, envelopes of marijuana and materials for diluting heroin in preparation for its sale. They also found a revolver, two rifles and two shotguns.
The police arrested the apartment's two occupants— Wayne Brewington, 19, a student at City College, and Reggie Blackwell, 22, a student at Bronx Community College. They were being held in $7,500 bail yesterday. An assistant district attorney said their apartment appeared to be "a regular factory" for drug preparation.
At the building yesterday, teen‐aged girl said the two youths held frequent parties. "I know that Reggie," the girl said. "He's like, you know, real cool."
The Medical Examiner's office said early today that no member of the family had yet appeared to identify the body.
Miss Dishman's body was taken to the morgue, and her name—as case No. 483—was placed in the register along with the three other people, all under 30, who died of heroin overdoses in the city this week end and the seven who died From causes related to drug use since Friday.
Daughter of Jean Allen and Garland Dishman. A model student, she graduated 2nd in a class of 500. Her friends and family were shocked that she died of a heroin overdose.
New York Times, Feb. 2, 1970
Two weeks ago, a bright, pretty Barnard freshman named Antoinette Dishman joined other black militants in a demonstration to force St. Luke's Hospital to open a program for teen‐aged heroin addicts.
Saturday morning, in a small apartment in a rundown area of the Bronx, Antoinette Dishman died after inhaling an overdose of heroin. She was 17 years old.
Yesterday, Barnard mourned the loss of a model student. On the seventh floor of Hewitt Hall, where Miss Dishman lived with 27 other black freshmen, her friends were shocked.
As far as anyone knew, Miss Dishman had had no involvement with drugs—not even marijuana smoking—up to the time of her death.
"It's terrifying," said one classmate. "She didn't deserve that. Because we're black, we all know about heroin and its dangers and just because of this knowledge I always thought we were protected from it. It's not as if we're some white girl sniffing for the first time out of ignorance."
Dr. Martha E. Peterson, the president of the women's college at 116th Street and Broadway, said: "The entire Barnard community is saddened by Toni Dishman's tragic death.
"She was esteemed by all who had come to know her during her one semester at the college. The needless waste of a young life concerns us all, both youth and adults. It should lead us to a redoubling of our efforts to understand the dangers of drugs and the need to control their use."
"Other girls," a classmate said yesterday, "used to say they wanted to try this or try that, but Toni never did. I honestly don't think she was that interested at all in drugs."
"She was a very lovely young lady, a superb student," said Theodore H. Lewis, the principal of Harlan High School in Chicago, from which Miss Dishman graduated last June ranked second in a class of more than 500. "If you told me that she was involved with drugs I'd say you had to be out of your mind."
At the high school on the South Side, she was known as a bright, articulate girl with happy family background, member of the student council, the band, the honor society, the newspaper.
"She had everything going for her—brains, attractiveness, leadership," Mr. Lewis said. "She was A‐1 material. If she were a boy, you'd have to say that in 10 years she was going to be at the very top."
At Barnard, she fit quickly into its black militant society and BOSS—the Black Organization of Soul Sisters.
"All the parties we go to are black parties," said one of Miss Dishman's close friends. "Our lives are black. Some people call us militant; we call ourselves nationalist. All the guys we date are black. Me, I've never had any social contact with whites. To me, Harlem is like home."
"She used to know how to handle people," a friend said of Miss Dishman's relations with whites. "She never misplaced her hostility. She was rather friendly with some white people, but she preferred to be with blacks as we all do."
The girl and her friends lived outside the white world of Barnard and neighboring Columbia.
"This school is one of the last bastions of everything that's proper," said a classmate. "But I don't think we black students are as threatened by the Barnard‐Columbia thing as the white kids. To us it's just an extension of the Establishment, and we've been fighting that all our lives."
Miss Dishman took courses in chemistry, English, Russian, calculus and biology, and was doing well in them.
Friends said that when she came to Barnard she tended toward the tomboy, playing basketball and talking about sports. Under the teasing of her companions on the seventh floor through the fall and winter, she became, in the words of one, "an elegant, chic young woman." Her hair was cut in the Afro style and she wore bell‐bottom slacks and mod clothes.
"She was really happy because she was becoming sexy and she was becoming a part of our floor," a friend said. "Her world was getting bigger."
Miss Dishman, who turned 17 last fall, was the youngest girl on her floor and one of the youngest at the college. Her companions, in the words of one, considered her "our baby."
While going out with her new friends and dating frequently, she also kept close touch with home. She received food packages from her mother and talked often about her brothers and sisters.
About 11 P.M. Friday, Miss Dishman and a group of friends went to a party near the campus. Those who attended refused to discuss it yesterday after consulting a lawyer. But one girl who heard about it said, "It was so crowded and there were so many drugs around they were afraid there would he a bust."
Students yesterday said it was rare for anyone at Barnard or Columbia to become in volved with heroin, although the use of marijuana was common.
"I know there's marijuana and hash [hashish, a marijuana derivative] all around," said girl on Miss Dishman's floor, "but the hardest thing I ever heard of people taking is coke [cocaine]. Nobody takes heroin, even at off campus parties."
The only recorded case of heroin use at Barnard or Columbia in recent years occurred in June, 1968, when two Columbia freshmen were suspended after being charged with using the drug. Last March, Fairleigh S. Dickinson 3d died in a Columbia dormitory after taking a combination of opium and LSD.
Miss Dishman and her friends returned from the party about 3 A.M. She left again soon afterward to go to the Bronx apartment of some youths she had met that evening.
One of Miss Dishman's friends told the police later that three couples made up the party at 1205 College Avenue, near 167th Street in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. The apartment, occupied by two college students, is in an area somewhere between slum and middle‐class.
The friend said the couples danced and talked until 5:30, when they decided to "turn on." The participants then went to sleep. When they tried to awake Miss Dishman at about 10 A.M., she was dead.
The girl showed the common effects of a heroin overdose — froth at the nose and mouth, congestion of the internal organs, edema of the lungs. "Her lungs were almost like you see in drowning cases," said Dr. Milton Helpern, the Chief Medical Examiner.
Effects of Overdose
Miss Dishman's friend called the police when she found she could not awaken the girl. In the apartment, the police found 3 ounces of heroin, envelopes of marijuana and materials for diluting heroin in preparation for its sale. They also found a revolver, two rifles and two shotguns.
The police arrested the apartment's two occupants— Wayne Brewington, 19, a student at City College, and Reggie Blackwell, 22, a student at Bronx Community College. They were being held in $7,500 bail yesterday. An assistant district attorney said their apartment appeared to be "a regular factory" for drug preparation.
At the building yesterday, teen‐aged girl said the two youths held frequent parties. "I know that Reggie," the girl said. "He's like, you know, real cool."
The Medical Examiner's office said early today that no member of the family had yet appeared to identify the body.
Miss Dishman's body was taken to the morgue, and her name—as case No. 483—was placed in the register along with the three other people, all under 30, who died of heroin overdoses in the city this week end and the seven who died From causes related to drug use since Friday.
New York Times, Feb. 2, 1970
Two weeks ago, a bright, pretty Barnard freshman named Antoinette Dishman joined other black militants in a demonstration to force St. Luke's Hospital to open a program for teen‐aged heroin addicts.
Saturday morning, in a small apartment in a rundown area of the Bronx, Antoinette Dishman died after inhaling an overdose of heroin. She was 17 years old.
Yesterday, Barnard mourned the loss of a model student. On the seventh floor of Hewitt Hall, where Miss Dishman lived with 27 other black freshmen, her friends were shocked.
As far as anyone knew, Miss Dishman had had no involvement with drugs—not even marijuana smoking—up to the time of her death.
"It's terrifying," said one classmate. "She didn't deserve that. Because we're black, we all know about heroin and its dangers and just because of this knowledge I always thought we were protected from it. It's not as if we're some white girl sniffing for the first time out of ignorance."
Dr. Martha E. Peterson, the president of the women's college at 116th Street and Broadway, said: "The entire Barnard community is saddened by Toni Dishman's tragic death.
"She was esteemed by all who had come to know her during her one semester at the college. The needless waste of a young life concerns us all, both youth and adults. It should lead us to a redoubling of our efforts to understand the dangers of drugs and the need to control their use."
"Other girls," a classmate said yesterday, "used to say they wanted to try this or try that, but Toni never did. I honestly don't think she was that interested at all in drugs."
"She was a very lovely young lady, a superb student," said Theodore H. Lewis, the principal of Harlan High School in Chicago, from which Miss Dishman graduated last June ranked second in a class of more than 500. "If you told me that she was involved with drugs I'd say you had to be out of your mind."
At the high school on the South Side, she was known as a bright, articulate girl with happy family background, member of the student council, the band, the honor society, the newspaper.
"She had everything going for her—brains, attractiveness, leadership," Mr. Lewis said. "She was A‐1 material. If she were a boy, you'd have to say that in 10 years she was going to be at the very top."
At Barnard, she fit quickly into its black militant society and BOSS—the Black Organization of Soul Sisters.
"All the parties we go to are black parties," said one of Miss Dishman's close friends. "Our lives are black. Some people call us militant; we call ourselves nationalist. All the guys we date are black. Me, I've never had any social contact with whites. To me, Harlem is like home."
"She used to know how to handle people," a friend said of Miss Dishman's relations with whites. "She never misplaced her hostility. She was rather friendly with some white people, but she preferred to be with blacks as we all do."
The girl and her friends lived outside the white world of Barnard and neighboring Columbia.
"This school is one of the last bastions of everything that's proper," said a classmate. "But I don't think we black students are as threatened by the Barnard‐Columbia thing as the white kids. To us it's just an extension of the Establishment, and we've been fighting that all our lives."
Miss Dishman took courses in chemistry, English, Russian, calculus and biology, and was doing well in them.
Friends said that when she came to Barnard she tended toward the tomboy, playing basketball and talking about sports. Under the teasing of her companions on the seventh floor through the fall and winter, she became, in the words of one, "an elegant, chic young woman." Her hair was cut in the Afro style and she wore bell‐bottom slacks and mod clothes.
"She was really happy because she was becoming sexy and she was becoming a part of our floor," a friend said. "Her world was getting bigger."
Miss Dishman, who turned 17 last fall, was the youngest girl on her floor and one of the youngest at the college. Her companions, in the words of one, considered her "our baby."
While going out with her new friends and dating frequently, she also kept close touch with home. She received food packages from her mother and talked often about her brothers and sisters.
About 11 P.M. Friday, Miss Dishman and a group of friends went to a party near the campus. Those who attended refused to discuss it yesterday after consulting a lawyer. But one girl who heard about it said, "It was so crowded and there were so many drugs around they were afraid there would he a bust."
Students yesterday said it was rare for anyone at Barnard or Columbia to become in volved with heroin, although the use of marijuana was common.
"I know there's marijuana and hash [hashish, a marijuana derivative] all around," said girl on Miss Dishman's floor, "but the hardest thing I ever heard of people taking is coke [cocaine]. Nobody takes heroin, even at off campus parties."
The only recorded case of heroin use at Barnard or Columbia in recent years occurred in June, 1968, when two Columbia freshmen were suspended after being charged with using the drug. Last March, Fairleigh S. Dickinson 3d died in a Columbia dormitory after taking a combination of opium and LSD.
Miss Dishman and her friends returned from the party about 3 A.M. She left again soon afterward to go to the Bronx apartment of some youths she had met that evening.
One of Miss Dishman's friends told the police later that three couples made up the party at 1205 College Avenue, near 167th Street in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. The apartment, occupied by two college students, is in an area somewhere between slum and middle‐class.
The friend said the couples danced and talked until 5:30, when they decided to "turn on." The participants then went to sleep. When they tried to awake Miss Dishman at about 10 A.M., she was dead.
The girl showed the common effects of a heroin overdose — froth at the nose and mouth, congestion of the internal organs, edema of the lungs. "Her lungs were almost like you see in drowning cases," said Dr. Milton Helpern, the Chief Medical Examiner.
Effects of Overdose
Miss Dishman's friend called the police when she found she could not awaken the girl. In the apartment, the police found 3 ounces of heroin, envelopes of marijuana and materials for diluting heroin in preparation for its sale. They also found a revolver, two rifles and two shotguns.
The police arrested the apartment's two occupants— Wayne Brewington, 19, a student at City College, and Reggie Blackwell, 22, a student at Bronx Community College. They were being held in $7,500 bail yesterday. An assistant district attorney said their apartment appeared to be "a regular factory" for drug preparation.
At the building yesterday, teen‐aged girl said the two youths held frequent parties. "I know that Reggie," the girl said. "He's like, you know, real cool."
The Medical Examiner's office said early today that no member of the family had yet appeared to identify the body.
Miss Dishman's body was taken to the morgue, and her name—as case No. 483—was placed in the register along with the three other people, all under 30, who died of heroin overdoses in the city this week end and the seven who died From causes related to drug use since Friday.
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