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Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC

http://www.claflin.edu/


Claflin University, founded in 1869 as Claflin University, is the oldest historically Black college or university in South Carolina. It was also the first college in the state to welcome all students regardless of race or gender.

Our History

Claflin University's origins can be traced to 1866, when the Baker Biblical Institute was founded in Charleston, South Carolina. On April 2 of that year, working out of a building owned by the Institute, leaders of the Methodist Church organized the South Carolina Mission Conference. Mission Conference members, including Samuel Weston, Joseph Sasportas, and other prominent churchmen, played a crucial role in the December 18, 1869 founding of Claflin University. Boston philanthropist Lee Claflin and his son, Massachusetts Governor William Claflin, provided the initial financing for the purchase of the Orangeburg Female Academy, on whose grounds the new University was established. Dr. Alonzo Webster, who became Claflin's first president, and the Reverend T. Willard Lewis also played prominent roles in securing this site.

In 1871 Dr. Webster oversaw the merger of Claflin University and the Baker Biblical Institute, which was moved to Orangeburg. As a result of legislation in the South Carolina General Assembly, Claflin was affiliated with the South Carolina State Agricultural and Mechanical Institute (later to become South Carolina State University) from 1875 to 1896.

Since 1872, Claflin has been offering instruction in the arts and sciences, as well as in crafts and a variety of pre-professional fields. Teacher training has always been a vital aspect of the Claflin mission. The first class in the University's Normal Department (for teacher education) graduated in 1879. The College Department awarded its first bachelor's degree in 1882.

Reverend Edward Cooke served as Claflin's second president from 1872 to 1884. He was succeeded by Reverend Dr. Lewis M. Dunton (1884-1922), Dr. Joseph B. Randolph (1922- 1945), Dr. John J. Seabrook (1945-1955), Dr. Hubert V. Manning (1956-1984), and Reverend Dr. Oscar A. Rogers, Jr. (1984-1994). Dr. Henry N. Tisdale, a 1965 graduate of Claflin, became the University's eighth president on June 1, 1994.

The church leaders who established Claflin stipulated that it would welcome students of diverse backgrounds, regardless of race or gender. Nowhere in South Carolina was there another institution with Claflin's forward-looking scope and purpose. And there still isn't.




LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, TN

http://www.loc.edu/index.htm

The merger of LeMoyne College and Owen College in 1968 joined two institutions, which had rich traditions as private, church-related colleges that have historically served Black students, founded and developed to provide higher education to students in the Mid-South area.

LeMoyne Normal and Commercial School opened officially in 1871, but it actually began in 1862 when the American Missionary Association sent Lucinda Humphrey to open an elementary school for freedmen and runaway slaves to Camp Shiloh soon after the occupation of Memphis by federal troops under General Ulysses S. Grant. The School was moved to Memphis in 1863, but was destroyed by fire in the race riots, which followed the withdrawal of federal troops in 1866. Lincoln Chapel, as the school was then known, was rebuilt and reopened in 1867 with 150 students and six teachers, but the small school was beset by financial problems.

In 1870, Dr. Francis J. LeMoyne, a Pennsylvania doctor and abolitionist, donated $20,000 to the American Missionary Association to build an elementary and secondary school for prospective teachers. The first years were difficult ones, primarily, because of the toll that the yellow fever epidemic took on school personnel, but under the leadership of the third principal, Andrew J. Steele, the institution experienced three decades of growth and development.

In 1914, the school was moved from Orleans Street to its present site on Walker Avenue. In that same year, the first building, Steele Hall, was erected on the new campus. LeMoyne developed rapidly; it became a junior college in 1924 and a four-year college in 1930, chartered by the State of Tennessee just four years later.

Owen College began in 1947, when the Tennessee Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention bought property on Vance Avenue to build a junior college. After several years of planning, the school opened in 1954 as S. A. Owen Junior College, named in honor of a distinguished religious and civic leader, but the name was later changed to Owen Junior College. The merger of Owen and LeMoyne Colleges in 1968 joined two religious traditions at the same time that it reinforced the institutions' shared purpose of combining a liberal arts education with career training in a Christian setting.

From the President's Welcome
Among our distinguished graduates are Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton; civil rights activist and former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks and renowned scholar and teacher C. Eric Lincoln.