All About the Mission
For 150 years, egalitarian sentiment has been the order of the day at Berea College.
By Kendra Hamilton
BEREA, Ky.
It’s all about the mission at Berea College. Founded on a utopian dream, Berea has been doing diversity longer than any school in the South.
Berea College isn’t a product of the civil rights movement. Not even close. The school pre-dates Reconstruction. In fact, at 150 years old, the first integrated, co-educational school in the South pre-dates the Civil War.
Berea was founded on donated land at the edge of Kentucky’s “bluegrass country” by a hardy band of radicals and reformers, led by John Gregg Fee. According to Berea president Dr. Larry D. Shinn, Fee was a minister expelled from the Presbyterian denomination for his refusal to allow slaveholders in his church.
