America’s oldest personal Black college taught this nation what educated Black management seems like
Let’s begin with a confession: This is perhaps your first time ever listening to the identify Wilberforce College. Belief…when you do, you’ll always remember it.
Based in 1856, 5 years earlier than the Civil Battle fired its first shot—Wilberforce College stands because the oldest personal, traditionally Black college in the US. Not only a relic of historical past, however the birthplace of Black increased schooling management itself. Lengthy earlier than hashtags proclaimed “Black Excellence,” Wilberforce was already residing it, respiratory it, and constructing it from the bottom up.
A College Born From Defiance
Image it: America in 1856. Slavery nonetheless authorized. Black literacy outlawed in most states. And but, amid such oppression, one thing audacious emerged in Ohio, a college daring to consider that individuals of African descent not solely may be taught however ought to lead.
Wilberforce was named after British abolitionist William Wilberforce, a person who famously mentioned, “We’re too younger to comprehend that sure issues are inconceivable, so we are going to do them anyway.” That spirit equal elements religion and hearth turned the college’s heartbeat. Wilberforce was by no means merely about schooling. It was about freedom. About mind as a type of rise up.
And rise up it was. When the Civil Battle broke out in 1861, the college was compelled to quickly shut. However let’s be clear, Wilberforce didn’t cease; it merely reset. In 1863, whereas slavery was nonetheless authorized in a lot of the nation, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church bought and reopened the college. That second redefined possession and autonomy, Wilberforce turned one of many first establishments in America owned and operated by African Individuals.
Think about the braveness it took to determine a Black-owned college in the course of the nation’s bloodiest battle over race and freedom. Whereas Accomplice and Union armies clashed over whether or not Black folks deserved personhood, the AME Church was constructing an establishment premised on Black mental supremacy. That’s not simply academic historical past, that’s revolutionary motion.
Bishop Payne’s $10,000 Gamble
Main this subsequent chapter was Bishop Daniel A. Payne, who broke yet one more barrier as the primary Black faculty president in the US. With simply six college students and a $10,000 debt, Payne reopened the doorways in 1863. His gamble would change into foundational to a motion. As a result of the place Wilberforce led, different HBCUs would observe.
That’s not inspirational mythology. That’s infrastructure. Bishop Payne didn’t simply reopen a faculty, he established a blueprint for Black academic autonomy that each HBCU that got here after would construct upon. When Morehouse was based in 1867, when Howard opened in 1867, when Hampton began in 1868—they had been strolling paths Wilberforce had already cleared. Bishop Payne’s mannequin proved that Black folks may personal, function, and excel in increased schooling with out exterior oversight or validation.
The $10,000 debt he carried wasn’t simply monetary burden, it was funding in futures most of America believed shouldn’t exist. These six college students turned the proof of idea that might finally educate thousands and thousands.
The Athens of the West
Earlier than emancipation, Wilberforce was already a sanctuary of mind, tradition, and neighborhood—a spot the place Black households may alternate concepts, dream freely, and educate their youngsters with out concern. Its location close to Dayton, Ohio, carried historic weight: the area was a significant cease alongside the Underground Railroad. Freedom’s dream actually ran beneath its ft.
In these early days, the campus turned often known as the “Athens of the West,” a nod to its classical imaginative and prescient of enlightenment. Wilberforce wasn’t simply coaching future academics and ministers, it was cultivating visionaries who would form the ethical and mental compass of a folks nonetheless preventing for recognition in their very own land.
The classical reference was intentional. Athens represented the birthplace of Western philosophy, democracy, and mental pursuit. By claiming that mantle, Wilberforce declared that Black mental custom wasn’t spinoff, it was foundational. If historic Athens produced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, then the “Athens of the West” would produce its personal philosophers, its personal thinkers, its personal revolutionary minds that might reshape American democracy.
Even tragedy couldn’t cease its stride. When hearth destroyed the primary constructing in 1865, The New York Occasions ran with the headline “Wilberforce College Destroyed by Fireplace.” The college merely constructed once more. The resilience wasn’t unintentional, it was philosophical. Wilberforce understood that establishments constructed on the concept Black folks deserve schooling would all the time face opposition, whether or not from slavery, hearth, underfunding, or systemic neglect. The response was all the time the identical: rebuild, recommit, and refuse to vanish.
As a result of that’s the factor about Wilberforce, it doesn’t fade, it evolves.
The Lineage of Legends
Wilberforce’s alumni listing reads like a roll name of trailblazers who refused to play small.
Bayard Rustin, the sensible strategist behind the 1963 March on Washington, realized management ideas at Wilberforce that might architect certainly one of historical past’s most important civil rights demonstrations.
Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician whose calculations made American spaceflight attainable and whose story impressed the movie Hidden Figures, represents Wilberforce’s dedication to cultivating scientific minds when America advised Black folks they weren’t able to such work.
Nannie Helen Burroughs, an educator and girls’s empowerment pioneer lengthy earlier than the phrase had hashtags, understood that Black ladies’s liberation required schooling, financial independence, and political energy—classes realized at Wilberforce.
James H. McGee, Dayton’s first Black mayor, carried Wilberforce’s blueprint of civic management into metropolis corridor, proving that HBCU schooling interprets immediately into efficient governance.
April Woodard, award-winning journalist and media educator, continues that legacy in trendy storytelling, making certain the following technology understands how narrative shapes energy.
Even the mom of jazz legend Nancy Wilson referred to as Wilberforce house. The affect of WU isn’t simply historic it’s generational, woven via establishments, church buildings, media, and actions the world over.
Dozens of pastors, civic leaders, and innovators shaping communities nationwide hint their basis to Wilberforce’s lecture rooms. That’s not coincidence. That’s infrastructure intentionally constructed to supply leaders.
Producing Black Faculty Presidents
Wilberforce produced among the earliest Black faculty presidents and educators, serving to form the inspiration of HBCU management nationwide. When different establishments had been determining the best way to educate Black college students, Wilberforce graduates had been already working these establishments, setting requirements, and establishing precedents that outlined what Black increased schooling may accomplish.
Bishop Payne’s legacy prolonged far past Wilberforce’s campus, his mannequin of Black academic management turned the template each HBCU president who adopted would inherit.
A Legacy of Management That Nonetheless Leads
Wilberforce’s best achievement isn’t survival, it’s relevance. For 167 years, the college has been a quiet powerhouse, shaping the spine of Black intellectualism, the spirit of self-determination, and the ideas of management which have outlined HBCUs nationwide.
Right now, Wilberforce stands not solely as a monument to what was achieved however as a name to what should proceed. Its college students, professors, and alumni characterize an unbroken line of thinkers, creators, and community-builders who perceive that management, like liberation, is a lifelong pursuit.
At a time when variety is each celebrated and contested, Wilberforce College stays proof that the Black pursuit of data was by no means about inclusion, it was about company. It was about defining ourselves relatively than ready to be outlined.
Why This Historical past Issues Now
The story of Wilberforce challenges narratives that Black excellence is latest, that HBCU prominence is new, that our mental custom is by some means borrowed relatively than constructed. Wilberforce was producing mathematicians who would calculate house trajectories, strategists who would set up the March on Washington, and civic leaders who would govern cities—all whereas America was nonetheless debating whether or not Black folks deserved fundamental human rights.
When William Wilberforce mentioned, “We’re too younger to comprehend that sure issues are inconceivable, so we are going to do them anyway,” he couldn’t have recognized his identify would grace an establishment that embodied that philosophy for 167 years. The college named in his honor took impossibility as invitation; founding earlier than the Civil Battle, surviving hearth, working below Black possession throughout slavery, producing leaders who formed a nation that attempted to disclaim their humanity.
That’s not inspirational musings. That’s historic truth demanding recognition.
The relevance isn’t nostalgic. It’s pressing. Each time America questions whether or not HBCUs are nonetheless crucial, Wilberforce’s 167-year observe document solutions with receipts: sure, establishments designed by and for Black folks stay important, not as a result of segregation is fascinating, however as a result of self-determination produces totally different outcomes than assimilation ever may.
So sure, this is perhaps your first time listening to Wilberforce College’s identify. However belief—take into account it your introduction to the establishment that taught America what educated Black management seems like.
Wilberforce didn’t simply make historical past. It wrote the syllabus.
Be taught extra about Wilberforce College at wilberforce.edu.
