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80 4 A Historically Black Men’s College Admits Women The Case of Lincoln University Leslie Miller-Bernal and Susan Gunn Pevar Most historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) originated as coeducational institutions. The black community’s support of women’s work and education, its lack of endorsement of the concept of “true womanhood,” and its financial constraints made coeducation more appealing than separate colleges. A few black colleges that had been single-sex became coeducational in the 1920s when philanthropists favored large, consolidated institutions. Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, is therefore unusual in having been established in 1854 as a college for black men and in having remained all male for about 100 years. As an all-male university, Lincoln was small but prestigious. Known as the “black Princeton,” partly because of its ties to that all-male university, Lincoln achieved recognition for its famous graduates, including the renowned poet Langston Hughes; the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall; the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; and the first leader of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe. This chapter focuses on the gradual incorporation of women into the student body at Lincoln University, beginning in the 1950s. We are interested in not only the reasons women gained admission but also the effects of coeducation on this historically black institution and the experiences of female students themselves. To start, we present a brief overview of Lincoln University’s founding and first one hundred years. Lincoln University’s Founding John Miller Dickey (1806–1878), a white Presbyterian minister from Oxford, Pennsylvania (about 40 miles west of Philadelphia), was the man who had the CoingCoedFinalPages.indd 80 5/26/04 4:53:32 PM A Historically Black Men's College 81 vision and wherewithal to establish a college in 1854 for the education of free black men. Dickey’s motivation was political as well as religious. As a supporter of the American Colonization Society, he believed that the solution to the “problem” of free blacks was to have them emigrate and settle in the colony of Liberia. By educating free black men, yet another goal could be accomplished: having them serve as missionaries to convert Africans to Christianity since Dickey believed that black missionaries were more physically suited to the African climate than were whites.1 Lincoln was originally called Ashmun Institute, named for Jehudi Ashmun (1794–1828), a white Congregational minister who was an agent for the American Colonization Society and who died after six years of service in Liberia.2 The name was a signal that the college’s founder was committed to gradualism rather than to the “radical” goal of the immediate end of slavery advocated by such abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. This compromise position, delicate though it was, helped the fledgling educational institution survive in a county very close to the borders of such slave states as Delaware and Maryland. Chester County, where the college was located, contained a mixture of gradualist Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, almost all of whom were committed to preserving the Union and abolishing slavery slowly, and Quakers, most of whom were gradualists, although some favored immediate emancipation.3 The site chosen for the college was a small settlement of free blacks named Hinsonville, after one its residents who had emigrated to Canada.4 Not surprisingly, given the presence of free blacks and radical abolitionists, several homes were stops on the Underground Railroad. It has been estimated that more than 50,000 slaves were helped in their escape through Chester County between 1825 and 1861.5 In 1854, after a serious struggle, the Pennsylvania State Legislature granted a charter for Ashmun Institute—for the “scientific, classical and theological education of colored youth of the male sex.” Without Dickey’s powerful friends, many involved in the colonization movement, the bill would never have passed the Pennsylvania Senate.6 Fund-raising took more time, even though Dickey himself purchased the 30-acre farm where the college was built.7 Ashmun Institute finally opened in January 1857 with four students, two in a preparatory course and two in the theology department.8 Ashmun Institute’s early years were very difficult and became even more so during the Civil War, when enrollment dropped. After the war, the African colonization scheme seemed less appropriate. Recognizing the need for trained blacks to serve as community leaders, Ashmun Institute’s trustees applied to the state for a modified charter. In 1866 the institution...

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