Wilberforce University

Wilberforce University is a private, coed, liberal arts and historically black university located in Wilberforce, Ohio.

Wilberforce University was also established prior to the American Civil War; it was founded in 1856 via a collaboration between the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Ohio and the Methodist Episcopal Church (the latter a predominantly white denomination).

Central State University, also in Wilberforce, Ohio began as a department of Wilberforce University where Ohio state legislators could sponsor scholarship students.

Established by the state legislature in 1887 as a two-year program for teacher and industrial training, it was originally located with Wilberforce University, a four-year institution devoted to classical academic education.

Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans.

In the 19th century, the AME Church of Ohio collaborated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly white denomination, in sponsoring the second independent historically black college (HBCU), Wilberforce University in Ohio.

Wilberforce University is a private, coed, liberal arts and historically black university located in Wilberforce, Ohio.

The community is home to what is now Wilberforce University and Central State University, two historically black universities.

AME Bishop Daniel Payne was one of the university's original founders and became the first president after re-opening, the first African American to become a college president in the United States. Among the first 24 members of the Board of Trustees in 1855 were Bishop Daniel A. Payne, Rev. Lewis Woodson and Messrs.

A major shaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), Payne stressed education and preparation of ministers and introduced more order in the church, becoming its sixth bishop and serving for more than four decades (1852–1893) as well as becoming one of the founders of Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856.

Located three miles (5 km) from the county seat of Xenia, Ohio in the southwestern part of the state, Wilberforce University was founded as a collaboration among leaders of the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In 1974, the area was devastated by an F5 tornado that was part of the 1974 Super Outbreak, which destroyed much of the city of Xenia and the old campus of Wilberforce.

After it went out of business, the complex was purchased for use as Wilberforce College, a historically black college founded by a collaboration between the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Church.

Among the first 24 members of the Board of Trustees in 1855 were Bishop Daniel A. Payne, Rev. Lewis Woodson and Messrs.

Woodson was among the original 24 trustees to found Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856, in a collaboration between the AME and the Cincinnati Methodist Council.

Xenia had quite a large free black population, as did other towns in southern Ohio, such as Chillicothe, Yellow Springs and Zanesville.

Purchased by the AME Church in the early 1860s and operated by African Americans since then, it has developed as Wilberforce University, in a village known as Wilberforce.

It participates in the United Negro College Fund.

* Wilberforce University, Wilberforce

Top-ranking scholars taught at the college, including W.E.B. Du Bois, the philologist William S. Scarborough, Edward Clarke, and John G. Mitchell, dean of the seminary.

Born into slavery, Scarborough served as president of Wilberforce University between 1908 and 1920.

Top-ranking scholars taught at the college, including W.E.B. Du Bois, the philologist William S. Scarborough, Edward Clarke, and John G. Mitchell, dean of the seminary. The college attracted the top professors of the day, including W. E. B. Du Bois.

In the summer of 1894, Du Bois received several job offers, including one from the prestigious Tuskegee Institute; he accepted a teaching job at Wilberforce University in Ohio.

As a base for the college, the Cincinnati Conference bought a hotel, cottages and 54 acre of a former resort property near Xenia.

After some protest by men, in the 1850s the college hired Frances E. W. Harper, an abolitionist poet, as the first woman to teach at the school.

Union closed in 1863 when the AME Church diverted its funds to purchase Wilberforce University, the first black-owned and operated college.

In November 1864 he enrolled in night classes at Wilberforce University, and he became a full student in 1865, graduating with an A. B. in 1872.

He published more than 15 books on African-American history, taught for decades at Howard University, and served as president of Wilberforce University, and founding president of Central State University, both in Ohio.

In 1894 Lieutenant Charles Young, the third black graduate of West Point and at the time the only African-American commissioned officer in the US Army, led the newly established military science department.

In 1894, Lieutenant Young was assigned to Wilberforce College in Ohio, an historically black college (HBCU), to lead the new military sciences department, established under a special federal grant.

Floyd Harold Flake (born January 30, 1945) is the senior pastor of the 23,000 member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, New York, and former president of Wilberforce University.

They named the college after the British abolitionist and statesman William Wilberforce.

Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce in their liturgical calendars, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States, founded in 1856, is named after him.

In 1974, the area was devastated by an F5 tornado that was part of the 1974 Super Outbreak, which destroyed much of the city of Xenia and the old campus of Wilberforce.

Upon exiting Xenia, the tornado passed through Wilberforce, heavily damaging several campus and residential buildings of Wilberforce University.

Additional leading scholars taught at the college in the early 20th century, such as Theophilus Gould Steward, a politician, theologian and missionary; and the sociologist Richard R. Wright, Jr., the first African American to earn a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

After the war he graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School of Philadelphia, and later was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree from Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1881.

The Bulldogs formerly competed as members of the American Mideast Conference.

This left Fisher College and Wilberforce University as the only remaining members, but as they have now become NAIA independent schools in the Association of Independent Institution, the conference has been shut down.

Additional leading scholars taught at the college in the early 20th century, such as Theophilus Gould Steward, a politician, theologian and missionary; and the sociologist Richard R. Wright, Jr., the first African American to earn a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1932, Wright moved from Philadelphia to Wilberforce, Ohio, to serve as the 9th President of Wilberforce University.

In the 1970s, the university established the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, to provide exhibits and outreach to the region.

Wilberforce had been a major stop on the Underground Railroad (which helped enslaved black people find safe passage through northern states and into Canada), and the former site of Wilberforce University.

The sorority initially expanded with a second chapter, Beta, established at Wilberforce University, February 5, 1914.

After this, Kappa Alpha Psi chartered undergraduate chapters on Black college campuses at Wilberforce University—Delta chapter, and Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)—Epsilon chapter.