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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, Hello, everyone, Welcome to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class, where we bring you a new tidbit from

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Speaker 1: history every day. Today is April. The day was April

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four. The Ashman Institute, now called Lincoln University,

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Speaker 1: received its charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It became

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Speaker 1: the first degree granting historically Black college and University, or HBCU,

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Speaker 1: in the country. The university was founded by John Miller

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Speaker 1: Dickie and his wife, Sarah Emlynn Crescent. Dickie was a

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Speaker 1: Presbyterian pastor, and Crescent was a Quaker whose family had

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Speaker 1: a history of service and philanthropy. Dickie was involved in

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Speaker 1: the American Colonization Society, a group established to help free

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Speaker 1: black people immigrate to Africa. He also contributed to the

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Speaker 1: liberation of Rachel and Elizabeth Parker, who were kidnapped in

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Speaker 1: the town of Oxford for sale into slavery. Before the

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Speaker 1: Civil War, it was extremely difficult to get into a

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Speaker 1: white college as a black person. Many institutions were founded

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Speaker 1: to provide black students with elementary and secondary schooling. Since

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Speaker 1: that education was limited for black people. A lot of

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Speaker 1: those institutions did not offer post secondary courses and programs

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Speaker 1: until the early nineteen hundreds, But in the eighteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: Dickie had been trying to get a young free black

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Speaker 1: man named James Ralston Amos into college. Amos was the

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Speaker 1: treasurer of the Fund for Negro church building that Richard

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Speaker 1: Allen had established at the end of the eighteenth century.

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Speaker 1: But Dickie's efforts to get Amos into Princeton University, seminary

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Speaker 1: and a religious academy ran by the Presbyterian Senate of

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia failed, so Dickie himself began preparing Amos for ministry.

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Speaker 1: Unhappy was Amos's inability to get into a white institution,

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Speaker 1: Dickey aimed to establish a higher education institution just for

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Speaker 1: black men. In October of eighteen fifty three, the Presbyterian

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Speaker 1: of Newcastle approved Dickie's request for quote an institution to

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Speaker 1: be called Ashman Institute for the Scientific, Classical, and Theological

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Speaker 1: Education of Colored Youth of the male sex. Dickie and

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Speaker 1: Crescent named Ashman Institute at their Yehudi Ashman a social

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Speaker 1: reformer who was active in the American Colonization Society. Ashman

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Speaker 1: was a US representative and governor of the colony and

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Speaker 1: Liberia that free black people were repatriated to. The Ashman

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Speaker 1: Institute opened to students on January one, eighteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: with four students enrolled. In its early years, the school's

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Speaker 1: education was based in the teachings of Christianity, and the

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Speaker 1: Newcastle Presbytery appointed trustees and faculty. Reverend John pim Carter

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Speaker 1: became the first president of the university, serving from eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty six to eighteen sixty two. Since Dicky was providing

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Speaker 1: a lot of the funding from his own pockets, the

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Speaker 1: school did not have much money in the beginning. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, the first three graduates went to Liberia.

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Speaker 1: During the Civil War, enrollment dropped as students enlisted. Ashman

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Speaker 1: Institute was renamed Lincoln University in eighteen sixty six, not

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Speaker 1: long after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. It's amended eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six charter increased the size of the board of

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Speaker 1: trustees from nine to one, and the maximum property holding

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Speaker 1: rights were increased. After the Civil War, support for black

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Speaker 1: higher education institutions increased. The Second Moral Act, passed in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety, targeted former Confederate States and resulted in the

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Speaker 1: establishment of public land grant institutions designated for black people

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Speaker 1: and the founding of many black land grant colleges. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen Dr Horace Mann Bond, a historian and social science researcher,

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Speaker 1: became the first black president of Lincoln University, and in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three the university began to award women degrees.

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Speaker 1: Poet Lenston Hughes, u S, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshal,

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Speaker 1: poet and musician Gil Scott Heron, and former Ghanaian president

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Speaker 1: qualm and Kruma are some of Lincoln's notable alumni. Though

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Speaker 1: Ashman Institute was the first degree granting black higher education institution,

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Speaker 1: Chaney University was the first higher education institution for black

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Speaker 1: people in America. It was founded as a secondary school

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Speaker 1: called the for An Institute in Cheney, Pennsylvania, in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty seven, but it did not award its first degree

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Speaker 1: until nineteen fourteen. I'm Eves Jeff Coo and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: t D I h C podcast Tune in tomorrow for

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