Well, I tell people that, when they come through our archives for a tour, the wonderful thing about it is that we are the only college or university that has been funded and founded by enslaved people, and they're like, what?

It's like, yes, enslaved people actually started a school and you would never think that would actually happen.

But it did.

And we've been here for 160 years.

I was going to say 68, but that's not right.

160 years.

course, Missouri was a slave state.

Now, it probably was, something maybe a little bit more moderate than in the Deep South.

Mainly because, you didn't have the you have you didn't have the staple kind of crop like cotton.

You did have tobacco, you had hemp, you know, but a lot of slaves, you know, that was.

Well, general farmers also, most of the slaveholders were small slaveholders, you know, were very few, very, you know, large plantations or anything like that.

So most slave owners, you know, had 2 or 3 slaves at most.

And, and so, it also, you had, influx of migrants, in the 1840s, 50s, you know, coming in, I was German or like, and some of them came, especially, I think, among the German population, a little bit of anti-slavery and thinking in the like.

So, so it was some tensions.

The Civil War started, there was an attempt to take Missouri into the Confederacy.

But really, like I said, you had all this migration into the state, that, you know, made the Missouri stay as a Union state so you get the Civil War, would Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, it's it had a section that said that African-Americans could be raised as so, you know, it was be recruited as soldiers Now, when they joined, one of the conditions was that they would be free.

So if a master volunteer slave, he would get $300 if they drafted him, you know, maybe even from a reluctant slave master, you only got 100.

Well, what?

The Emancipation Proclamation, a lot of slaves began to take off, and so the value of the slaves plummeted.

You know, I mean, you know, going from, you know, maybe a thousand or more, you know, down to, like, you know, $100.

And so a lot of slave masters were anxious, you know, not everyone, but did go ahead.

And you know, you know, let the or slave, you know, join the Union Army, you know, of course.

And they would get in return their freedom When African Americans were.

Invited by the United States government to join the military.

You have to pause and think about what that really meant.

These were people who were formerly considered no less or more than merchandise that were bought and sold.

And now this country that treated them that way wants them to defend it, and it amazes me that they would do that so quickly and without pause.

But if you think about the underlying reason why they did that, they were fighting for two things.

They were fighting for freedom, and they're fighting for their lives.

If the North would have lost the war, they would have gone back to the way they had lived before being enslaved.

And I don't think there's anyone that wanted that to happen.

So they fought fiercely.

They fought bravely for the Union Army.

But one of the things that happened in the Union Army was that they were taught to read and write, and some of the, Union Army, forces like the 62nd, which was mainly responsible for the founding of Lincoln.

There was a they put in a requirement in order for an African American to become a non.

You know, it was a sergeant, a noncommissioned officer, a corporal.

So they had to reach a certain level of education There is a general order that says noncommissioned officers who cannot read or write will be demoted and replaced by privates who are able to read and write.

And that was only one year after they enlisted.

That's only one year after they were free.

And so, you know, they really had to to make that a priority in their own lives to, to read and write.

And so I think that just really created a, created an environment where this is essential to being a good citizen, to finding your way in the world, in this world that's been created.

There was a law in 1847, in Missouri that said slaves cannot be educated.

Actually, it said blacks could not be educated, which, you know, included slaves in Missouri.

And so it wasn't the fact that these men and women all, were not able to do it.

They weren't allowed to do it.

And so when their officers said, you know, we want to educate you, they jumped at the chance because this is something that they knew would make them more productive, more successful.

And it just falls back on that old adage that knowledge is power.

And that's what the, you know, the slaveholders were trying to avoid.

But now them being in a different environment, they had the opportunity to do it, and they went at it wholeheartedly.

When the war was over, you know, they were reorganized like the 62nd had actually fought and was considered the last battle was Civil War in Texas, and they decided, at least among the men, they had been educated and they were, got some education, you know, I mean, and also read and write and, they wondered, though, what would happen back in Missouri.

And so they had this idea of establishing a school, and they wanted the primary teacher was a man named Foster, he had been an abolitionist from New Hampshire.

He had actually rode with John Brown in Kansas, where he had kind of decided that he wanted to, make his contribution at a more peaceful level.

And so he went up to Iowa and began teaching black students.

And then, and then he was in Nebraska when the war started.

He volunteered for the Union.

And when Lincoln authorized the, formation of black units, he volunteered and, well, of course, was made an officer.

I mean, actually, he had a college education, which was a very rare thing at this time.

having white officers, especially having people in the 62nd Regiment, such as Richard Baxter Foster and Aaron Adamson, who were both staunch abolitionists and believed that African-Americans should receive, fair treatment, and especially in regards to education, which they had been previously denied, that gave them a bond, a camaraderie that was unique to any, unit.

Other unit in, the military at that time is something that has been, unprecedented.

anybody who's been in, in, in, in a war situation, you know, or, you know, usually the battles are short and intense, and then the rest of the time you're kind of preparing or getting ready or waiting for and such.

And of course, and some of this is times when they were being educated and, and they, they, they, they realized the benefit that they were receiving.

As such, they thought this was very important and they wanted they wanted it to be, not lost.

In other words.

they wanted to establish some school in at least the school in Missouri with this effort could continue.

And they were very motivated in that regard.

I mean, so the, the, the motivation of the school founding really started with the soldiers.

They were the ones, that really wanted to keep this educational effort going, they came up with this idea while they were there, getting ready to demobilize at Fort McIntosh, starting school back in Missouri.

And they raised him.

He's not raising money and the men gave what they could, they only making about $150 a year.

So, but the officers contributed like 150 things like that.

Especially the, the, the higher ranking officer, they were at least a hundred and, they, raised about $5,000.

They thought that Foster, since he had been the main teacher, you know, he might be the one to lead them this enterprise, to establish a school back in Missouri.

you know, we had the letters that he wrote his wife during this time and he says, I'm really looking forward to getting the school started.

And I think the men will do well there.

And he was, just really optimistic about it.

And he was he always seemed to be upbeat about everything, and he never gave up hope.

And he's, you know, of course, he's very spiritual man.

So he believed in, you know, a higher power.

they were really smart in picking Foster.

As the person that would, lead the venture.

You know, I mean, he was a very determined, very strong willed.

You know, in very much believed in the cause of black education So, he was a good choice.

I think, if they had picked the weaker person, the school would not have made it.

between the 62nd and the 65th and what the officers, donations included there was $6,000 seed money for the school.

And, you know, that's a big risk right off the bat.

It's $6,000 because we don't even know if this is going to work or not.

But here, give that money to Foster.

Do what you can with it.

Of course, he gets in contact with Turner, and then the ball gets rolling to other organizations like the Freedmen's Bureau and, something called the Western Sanitary Commission, which was originally concerned with medical, issues during the war.

But they continued on after the war, promoting education for African-Americans.

So they got involved in that, too.

So there was a lot of sacrifice, by those men to do that.

And many of those men, I mean, there were thousands of men in the regiments together.

They never most of them never came to Lincoln.

so with this money, Foster came.

He first tried to start a school in, Saint Louis.

But then when the person that was heading the project, you know, kind of put a veto on the idea.

Plus they headed to Jeff City because the, radical government was in place and he get more he thought he'd get a more sympathetic hearing, which he did.

The governor Fletcher, he had a bigger bet, you know, to raise money for the school and the like.

And, he started it off with contributing $100 and so forth.

So there was support.

And so the school started in Jeff City do think that when they were, mustering out there, there was a lot of enthusiasm for, you know, freedom, you know, get, to make our own choices in life.

And also that we had this great opportunity.

We need to share that, with others.

I mean, that that's clearly expressed in the amount of money that they were willing to donate from their own pay to, make this happen.

I, I like to think that that they were realists, that they knew what they were coming back to, that some people would be supportive, but it wasn't going to be an overnight, supported thing.

You know, I think when, Richard Baxter Foster came to Jefferson City was a very compelling story of of how it was a conflicted response to that with, the black church not wanting a white teacher and the white church not wanting a black teacher or a black students.

It's, so I think it was just very, not confusing, but, Uncharted territory.

You know, I think I think there was a lot of awkwardness, for trying to navigate the new territory for, What does this look like?

You know, so I think, I don't I don't think that the soldiers had rose-colored glasses as far as this is going to be, easy.

At the same time, they had to have had a sense of opportunity and, you know, just.

Oh, I can't imagine what that would be like to your entire life, dictated by someone else.

And now, for the first time, you can make your own choices and make your life what you want.

So, the, the idea that not only were they I'm free, but, you know, just that sense of community, we're going to we're going to share this, with others is is just a really compelling story, you know, that Lincoln has I it started out as what the soldiers had learned was rudimentary education.

The three Rs you know, ABCs, doing some writing and a little bit of mathematics.

And that's basically how it started in 1866 was two students on the first day of school, Cornelia Chapelle and Henry Brown, along with, their teacher, Richard Baxter Foster, who was in a little shack in Jefferson City on a place called Hobo Hill.

And there were holes in the wall, holes in the ceiling, and it was pouring down rain.

And that was the first day of school.

And that's how they started.

But that, caught on with the bang In the very beginning, it was pretty much a secondary it was pretty much a secondary school.

And it was from the very beginning called Lincoln Institute.

And there was, you know, big emphasis To see that the students that graduated had a basic literacy, but also that they had the skills to command, to make a living for themselves.

So it was kind of a kind of, you know, part academic, part industrial type school from the very beginning From 1837 forward, Missouri had made it illegal to teach a black man or woman free or slave to read or write.

So when they first opened Lincoln Institute, it was to educate anyone to read or write.

It was only after those first few years that they realized that they wanted to have, black teachers teaching in the black schools, and, that came from both sides, if you will.

The the white people didn't really want to be teachers in black schools.

A lot of times.

But at the same time, the black community wanted those role models for their children to have those, black teachers.

And so that's how Lincoln, becoming the normal school for the state's black teachers came about.

And then in 1871, they started raising money, nationwide, a lot of, philanthropic organizations were donating money to Lincoln Institute.

And this was with the help of a man named.

James Milton Turner and who later became the first African American diplomat to, foreign country, Liberia.

But he was a big push for getting national recognition for Lincoln Institute.

So by 19, 1871, we had enough money to build our building on the site that we're on now.

And one other thing about Turner, he was the one that came up with the idea that we should start training teachers if we should start a normal program, as it's called.

And because when African Americans in Missouri heard about Lincoln Institute and they could get an education there, they flocked to Jefferson City and we didn't have enough resources.

And the people that were getting ignored in the education progress were the young children that were left back at home.

And so what Turner said to do was to start educating teachers and had them go out into the public and teach these young blacks in these schools because, 1867, a law in Missouri said that, municipalities of a certain number that have a certain population have to have schools for their black residents and so you had all these schools, but no, no teachers.

And that's what Lincoln was doing was training teachers.

So in 1870, they started giving them $5,000 to, become a kind of a normal school, teaching blacks to become teachers, And they went along until about 1879, and it was a new constitution which encouraged black education.

But, basically I think it was attorney general said, but on a new constitution, there was actually a bill in there to give, Lincoln $10,000 to get rid of some of its debt.

And the, attorney general said want a new constitution?

The state can't give money to a private school.

Well, since the governor since the beginning, Fletcher had been on the board.

The governor, a governor, had been on the board.

So at that point, the governor got the board to donate the land and buildings to the state.

He resigned from the board and, the, the bill, you know, signed a bill that gave Lincoln that money and it at that point, Lincoln, it became a state institution the trade school basically started when we became a land grant school in 1890.

So we had that period where rudimentary education, then normal school.

And then in 1890, when the land grant, bill the Morrill Act, second Morrill Act is enacted, we get funds not only for agriculture, which was baked back then, of course, but also for vocational training, which is something that African Americans had never been offered before.

Now, for women, it wasn't very glamorous.

Most women that came to Lincoln studied, teacher education.

But others, if they wanted to learn a trade or go earn domestic work.

But, it, it evolved into things like, you know, dressmaking and haberdashery and things like that.

You know, in the men, a lot of crafts involved, like, carpentry and woodwork and, ironwork and auto mechanics and, tailoring and things like that.

Wagon making So we were very diverse at that time.

A real change came around the 1920s.

Up to the, up through the 1920s, especially in Saint Louis, a little bit in Kansas City, but primarily in Saint Louis.

The best and brightest of the African-American students, the middle class were encouraged to go out of state to schools like Howard University in Washington, DC or Fisk University But as the middle class started growing in Saint Louis, the people there and they got a little bit more political power, they began to raise the question of why should we pay so much?

To send our, you know, our kids, you know, all the way out east to Howard University or something like that, they knew about Lincoln, and so, you know, why couldn't it be developed into a kind of four, you know, you know, college that, you know, we want to send our children to.

You know, we were Lincoln Institute from 1866 to 1921.

During the early part of the 20th century, we started leaning more towards, academics and getting away from, vocational training.

And by 1921, we, we became a four year university in 1923, two years later, Nathan Young comes from Columbia University in New York City to become our president.

And this was during segregation.

So the University of Missouri is in Columbia, Lincoln University's in Jefferson City, Lincoln University has to be the counterpart for blacks, University of Missouri.

So Nathan Young wanted who said, let's make it so and so.

He recruits a lot of Ivy League educated African-American teachers and all of a sudden, the eyes of the black community are on Lincoln University.

Look at them, look at how they've improved.

They're like the black Harvard of the Midwest.

And that's how we got the nickname of that.

And he gave, Young gave incentives to teachers like, okay, if you come in here with a bachelor's degree and you get a master's degree, you're going to get a raise.

If you come in here with a master's degree, you get a PHD you're going to get a raise.

And a lot of those teachers that came in during that period from about 1925 up through 1950, they stuck around.

A lot of them stayed for 40 years or more.

I mean, people like Lorenzo Greene and History and, Armistead Pride and journalism.

And we are the first HBCU with a journalism program.

So he helped found that.

So you have a lot of these people that are sticking with it.

And we make a name for ourselves.

This faculty, you know, this faculty, they give it like, it's such a great, you know, reputation.

They were primarily all interested in integration.

They really thought that that was, you know, really where they, they wanted to see higher education go in such and, and so they pushed for that.

And in fact, when the, Supreme Court came down with the 1954, decision, they had, actually had a meeting, a conference, a sort of call from people from around the state and including politicians from Jeff City and the like.

It was they they sort of tried to survey, what was going to be Missouri's attitude towards integration.

And at least initially, you know, they got the impression that, there was, an impetus to move forward in this direction and the president at the time, Sherman Scruggs.

We look through his records in his correspondence, and he was preparing for that long before Brown versus Board of Education.

He knew it was inevitable.

So he was already getting the transformation ready for, white people to start going to Lincoln.

And it happened.

And you had Brown versus Board of Education, which meant African-Americans could go to school wherever they wanted to legally.

And but also white people could do the same thing.

So people who look like me here in Jefferson City, in the surrounding area, now had a choice.

They didn't have to go to the University of Missouri.

They could go to Lincoln.

Lincoln's down the street, Missouri, 30 miles away.

Lincoln's a little more affordable, and it's known as a black Harvard of the Midwest.

It's a darn good school.

So Lincoln University is still that opportunity where there isnt always opportunity for someone.

We have students, of course, that come in.

They might be first generation college students.

They might be, you know, their family might not have the means to provide, collegiate, access for them.

But Lincoln University always provides that opportunity of someone really, really wants to go to school.

We find the means for them to be able to attend Lincoln University.

You know, you talk often about an HBCU having that family feel, but it is it is definitely not just lip service.

When you come to Lincoln, as soon as a student walks on campus, people begin to know their story and whether they're with us for one year or if they go all the way through and earn even a master's degree, we follow that story along with them, and we just make them feel really welcome.

You're not a student ID number here you are definitely your name, your definitely your personality.

If you want to come and reinvent yourself here at Lincoln University, and you can also do that as well.

And so it's just always been, from the beginning, all the way until now, it has just always been that opportunity for anyone to grow into who they're meant to be.

So the soldiers Memorial, right at the center part of campus is a wonderful, wonderful project that we had, done in the early 2000s, about 2006, 2007.

Worked with a sculptor by the name of Ed Dwight, and he really brought the vision to life.

It was, it was a brainchild of, Doctor David B Henson, who was president of Lincoln University.

We had a building that was called Founders Hall, but that just didn't I mean, a building just doesn't really do justice of the true story of Lincoln University.

So he met up with Mr. Dwight and they came up with this concept.

It is one of the most beautiful sculptures that you will ever see.

Completely changes your spirit when you come on campus.

It is when you walk in, you kind of feel the spirit of those founders.

It is a beautiful, beautiful, just rendition of what I believe it really looked like in those beginning days of Lincoln Institute.

I do think that that they had, strong hopes of where, their, grandchildren would wind up, I think, or I, I if I were in that position, I would have this door open before me and I would step through it, not just thinking about myself, but thinking about my children and their children and, you know, really laying that groundwork for opportunity.

And I, I imagine that they knew their own family stories of being, taken away from their families and their families being taken away from their home countries.

And so to be able to change that narrative from, taken away from without their control to we're going to make our own choices and we're going to make this world better for the people ahead of us.

I think is a very powerful story.

I think they would be very proud of what the, the you know, what they started.

I think they would be enormously proud of what they started with.

You know what?

They started you know.

I mean, it was, it was just, you know, which a great idea, a, a tremendous idea, in fact, considering that you deal with people that started off, a group of men that started off as illiterate.

For them to think that they could actually get the money together and get a school established in the state, you know, which formally banned all education for, African-Americans or blacks, you know, I yeah, I think they would be enormously proud And deservingly so.