Lewis Woodson - Establishing Wilberforce University

Establishing Wilberforce University

Along with Bishop Daniel Payne, Woodson served as one of four ministers representing the AME Church; he was among the 24-member founding Board of Trustees of Wilberforce College in Ohio. They created a collaborative venture with white representatives of the Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which provided the first major funding. The university was opened in 1856 to provide collegiate education to African Americans. Among the trustees was Salmon P. Chase, a strong supporter of abolition and then Governor of Ohio. The AME representatives were the first African Americans to participate in establishing a historically black college. (The first college for black students, now Lincoln University, was established by Quakers in Pennsylvania in 1854. No African Americans participated in its founding.)

In 1858 Woodson's youngest sister, Sarah Jane Woodson, a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, was hired as the first woman to teach at Wilberforce. She became the first African-American woman to teach at any college.

The outbreak of the American Civil War cut off paying students from the South, who had comprised a majority of the 200 students at Wilberforce. Most were mixed race; their tuition was paid by their wealthy white planter fathers. The war also diverted Methodist Church resources, and it was unable to fully fund the school. In 1862 the Board of Trustees temporarily closed Wilberforce University because of financial problems.

In 1863 the AME Church purchased the university and assumed full responsibility for it. They selected Bishop Daniel Payne as president, the first African-American college president in the United States. To help raise money for the purchase, the AME Church sold the property used by Union Seminary to put its resources into Wilberforce University.