Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world, Nelson Mandela said in his 2003 speech, “Lighting Your Way to a Better Future.”
Enslaved people who sought freedom through education and abolitionists who used education as a catalyst to end slavery understood this idea.
So did Quaker philanthropist Richard Humphreys, who used education as a platform, changing the status of the nation, with just $10,000. In 1832, Humphreys bequeathed a portion of his estate to open The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY), a school for the descendants of the African race. This pivotal decision was the impetus that sparked a change and made it possible for modern historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to exist on the current higher education landscape. The history and impact of Humphreys and ICY should not be discounted as we reflect on the past.
On Feb. 25, 2018, the Institute of Colored Youth celebrated its 181st year of pioneering and championing change through education just days after film director Stanley Nelson released the documentary “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities” – the first of its kind. The 90-minute film, selectively assembled, admirably captured and highlighted eras, key facts, figures and collective thoughts from historians who were instrumental in the success and obstacles of HBCUs.
As the film traces a trajectory of events dating back to slavery, a very important piece of history is omitted – the beginning. In the beginning was the Institute of Colored Youth, now Cheyney University.
As an addendum to the film, consider this an overview of how the story of Cheyney, the nation’s oldest historically Black institution of higher education, started the HBCU narrative.
Until the nineteenth century, access to higher education was primarily reserved for upper-class White men and the clergy, indirectly prohibiting the public education of Black people as well as poor White Americans and women. By 1835, the state legislatures of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, expressly prohibited the public education of all Black people in the South.
