Wilberforce University

So nearly half of them came out of the Black church.

Morris Brown, Lane College, Paul Quinn College, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, which was the first Black-owned and Black-operated college or HBCU in America.

Next, we have the land grant institutions.

Again, we talked about the Second Moral Act of 1890.

A job in the Motor City did not guarantee the freedom to live where the Wausean suite understood both ambition and limits.

Born in Orlando, Florida in 1895 to tenant farmers, he attended Wilberforce University and earned a medical degree from Howard University.

He came to Detroit in 1921 and established a practice in the back of the Palace Drug Company.

By 1925, Sweet was married, had a young daughter, and wanted a better home for his family.

And that'll relate, that'll make a nice segue right into Bony Labyrinth because, um, which you want me to read first because it, that's related to the whole background of the book.

So from 1990 to 2000, I taught at Wilberforce University, our nation's oldest historical Black college or university that is also private and a liberal arts university.

It is an AME school.

And the 10 years I taught there, I basically learned, right, long story short, that I was, uh, as a white woman growing up, uh, in the suburbs of South Jersey like I did, I was really living in a parallel universe to many, if not most, of the people of color in this country, especially, um, African Americans and other Black and brown Americans in this country, and immigrants.

'Cause I was very young.

I was only 24 or 25 at the time, and I was very white, as the poem definitely reveals as well.

Okay, so there's an epigraph for Bony Labyrinth, um, from Wilberforce University's website.

And it reads, "Founded in 1856, Wilberforce University, our nation's oldest private historically Black university, was formed to provide an intellectual mecca, a refuge from slavery's first rule, ignorance." Bony Labyrinth.

Yeah, University of Pennsylvania.

Uh, Wilberforce University.

Right, right.

And basically, he talks about how he know he had to spend a lot of time hustling and just doing whatever he could just to pay the rent, so he's like, "I know what it feels like to be a student, and you know, you're out there by yourself, and you're in that position, and you don't know what you're gonna do." And so he has started this initiative so that he can help, you know, pay for or at least assist them in covering their rent for about 50 students.

So that led to my first academic job.

I actually taught part-time for my undergrad alma mater for a year, but then I landed my first full-time job at Wilberforce University, our nation's oldest private HBCU, which was founded in Wilberforce University along the Underground Railroad at the time.

And for 10 years, I taught there, and I had my children, and I was busy doing the things that a working mom does.

And in the early aughts, I had taken a job at another university back to my undergrad alma mater, in fact.

I want us to dive into writing Devil's Backbone.

You know, before Devil's Backbone became a collection, what was the first story, image or I guess we would say historical discovery or comfortable question that wouldn't leave you alone?

Yeah, I mean, it really dates back to when I did have my decade of teaching at Wilberforce University, which, again, is our oldest private historical black college university in the United States, founded along the Underground Railroad, which is now Route 42 in southwestern Ohio.

And when I landed there, I was very young.

He was a lawyer up in Massachusetts before he ever came to South Carolina.

Richard Caine had graduated from Wilberforce University before he ever came to Charleston.

And Richard Caine became the 14th AME Bishop.

Thomas Miller.

AURN News

According to HBCU Buzz, John Legend has partnered with Bilt to help cover rent for fifty college students at four schools this fall, including three HBCUs, Wilberforce University, Central State University, and Morehouse College.

The fourth school is Legend's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

The initiative is aimed at students living off campus who may be at risk of eviction, with Scholarship America helping administer the program.

She went to a university here, one of three black universities.

And it was called Wilberforce University.

I've never heard of it.

This is the first time I heard of it once I was looking her up.

So he finished high school here and college.

So I would have, yes, I would have ended up, me and my brother, all my siblings, our option is Jordan or Europe, the West, Europe or United States.

So, but to answer, you know, to compare that, remember, The Saudi universities were built by the Saudi government, right? So the Wilberforce University in Ohio, where Dorothy went, was built by African Americans.

So can you imagine what they had to go through in order to accomplish accomplish that that's a huge achievement i mean she graduated 1929 from that school you know in the united states was entering the great the great depression 1929 1930 so not only that like White Americans could not find jobs.

The Greene County Coroner's Office has now determined the 18-year-old died from acute alcohol intoxication.

Jones died this spring while attending Wilberforce University.

Her family has since filed a hazing-related lawsuit against the school.

The family's attorney, Rex Elliott, says the ruling confirms what they expected, calling her death the result of what he describes as a senseless and illegal hazing ritual.