An HBCU Transformed
Wilberforce, the nation’s oldest private Black college, emerges from one of its darkest periods just in time to celebrate its 150th birthday.
By Ronald Roach
Few institutions have embodied African-American history as completely as Wilberforce University. Established before the Civil War, the nation’s oldest private Black college was a powerful focal point in the struggle for equality and served as a destination point on the Ohio Underground Railroad. Closed briefly during the Civil War, officials with the African
Methodist Episcopal church brought Wilberforce back to life in 1863, purchasing it from the predominantly White Methodist Episcopal Church. That purchase made Wilberforce the first Black college to be owned and operated by African-Americans. Some years after its revival, Wilberforce would spin off two additional Black academic institutions, Central State University and Payne Theological Seminary.
Wilberforce has played host to some of the most famous and influential African-Americans of the 19th and 20th centuries. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, the pre-eminent Black scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, taught there for two years. The poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, who spent much of his life living in nearby Dayton, often performed his poetry readings at the small, rural campus. Other notables, including Leontyne Price and Dr. William Julius Wilson, earned their undergraduate degrees at Wilberforce.
Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, Wilberforce continues to showcase the viability and promise of the small private, historically Black college. The sesquicentennial anniversary comes at a time of uncertainty and financial hardship for many small Black institutions. Wilberforce itself only recently overcame arguably its largest financial crisis since the Civil War.
