A Brief History of Morehouse College

In 1867, two years after the Civil War ended, Augusta Institute was established in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, GA. Founded in 1787, Springfield Baptist is the oldest independent African American church in the United States. The school's primary purpose was to prepare black men for the ministry and teaching. Today, Augusta Institute is Morehouse College, which is located on a 61-acre campus in Atlanta and enjoys an international reputation for producing leaders who have influenced national and world history.

Augusta Institute was founded by the Rev. William Jefferson White, an Augusta Baptist minister and cabinetmaker, with the support of Richard C. Coulter, a former slave from Augusta, GA., and the Rev. Edmund Turney, organizer of the National Theological institute for educating freedmen in Washington, D.C. The Rev. Dr. Joseph T. Robert served as the institute's first president.

In 1879, Augusta Institute moved to the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta and changed its name to Atlanta Baptist Seminary. Later, the Seminary moved to a four-acre lot near the site on which the Richard B. Russell Federal Building now stands in downtown Atlanta. Following Robert's death in 1884, David Foster Estes, a professor at the Seminary, served as the institution's first acting president.

In 1885, when Dr. Samuel T. Graves was named president, the institution relocated to its current site in Atlanta's West End community. The campus encompasses a Civil War historic site, a gift of John D. Rockefeller, at which Confederate soldiers staged a determined resistance to Union forces during the famous siege of Atlanta. In 1897, Atlanta Baptist Seminary became Atlanta Baptist College, during the administration of Dr. George Sale, who served as president from 1890 to 1906.

A new era, characterized by expanded academic offerings and increased physical facilities, dawned with the appointment of Dr. John Hope as president in 1906. A pioneer in the field of education, he was the College's first African American president. Hope, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University, encouraged an intellectual climate comparable to what be had known at his alma mater and openly challenged Booker T. Washington's view that education for African Americans should emphasize vocational and agricultural skills.

Atlanta Baptist College, already a leader in preparing African Americans for teaching and the ministry, expanded its curriculum and established the tradition of educating leaders for all areas of American life. In addition to attracting a large number of talented faculty and administrators, Hope contributed much to the institution we know today. During his era, Atlanta Baptist Northern College was named Morehouse College in honor of Henry L. Morehouse, the corresponding secretary of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Society.

Dr. Samuel H. Archer became president of the College in 1931 and headed the institution during the Great Depression. He gave the school its colors, maroon and white, the same as those of his alma mater, Colgate University. Archer retired for health reasons in 1937. Dr. Charles D. Hubert served as acting president until 1940, when Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays became the sixth president of Morehouse College. A nationally noted educator and a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mays is recognized as the architect of Morehouse's international reputation for excellence in scholarship, leadership, and service. During the presidency of Mays, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College and the University of Chicago, the number of faculty members grew and the percentage holding doctoral degrees increased from 2 to 34 out of 65 teachers. The College earned global recognition as scholars from other countries joined the faculty, an increasing number of international students enrolled, and the fellowships and scholarships for study abroad became available. Morehouse received full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1957, and Mays' 14-year effort to win a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Morehouse was realized in 1968.

In 1967, Dr. Hugh M. Gloster, class of 1931, became the first alumnus to serve as president of the College. Under his leadership, Morehouse strengthened its board of trustees, conducted a successful $20 million fund-raising campaign, expanded the endowment to more than $29 million, and added 12 buildings to the campus, including the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel. Morehouse established a dual-degree program in engineering with the Georgia Institute of Technology and founded the Morehouse School of Medicine, which became an independent institution in 1981.

In 1987, Dr. Leroy Keith, Jr., class of 1961, was named president of Morehouse. During the Keith administration, the College's endowment increased to more than $60 million, and faculty salaries and student scholarships significantly increased. Construction of the Nabrit-Mapp-McBay science building was completed, Thomas Kilgore Jr. Campus Center and two dormitories were built, and Hope Hall was rebuilt. In 1994, Nima A. Warfield, a member of the graduating class that year, was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first from an historically black college.

In October 1994, Dr. Wiley A. Perdue, a member of the class of 1957 and vice president for business affairs, was appointed acting president of Morehouse. Under his leadership, national memorials were erected to honor Dr. Benjamin E. Mays and internationally noted theologian Dr. Howard W. Thurman, class of 1923. Perdue launched an initiative to upgrade the College's academic and administrative computer information systems, formalized plans to build a dormitory and undertook construction of a 5,700-seat gymnasium to provide a basketball venue for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

On June 1, 1995, Dr. Walter E. Massey, class of 1958, was named ninth president of Morehouse. A noted physicist, former provost of the University of California System, and former director of the National Science Foundation, Massey has called on the Morehouse community to renew its longstanding commitment to excellence in scholarship. Under his leadership, Morehouse has embraced the challenge of preparing for the 21st century and the goal of becoming one of the nation's best liberal arts colleges.

Morehouse offers 36 majors in the humanities, natural and social sciences. The College provides a number of programs and activities to enhance its challenging liberal arts curriculum, including the Leadership Center at Morehouse College, the Morehouse Research Institute, and the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs.

More than half of the students enrolled ranked in the top 20 percent of their high school graduating classes. Five percent of the nation's African American physicians and dentists have graduated from Morehouse College.

Recent academic enhancements include interdisciplinary programs in neuroscience, telecommunications, environmental biology and public health. Morehouse recently completed construction of a Technology Tower that will house the telecommunications program, the Department of Computer Science and the Office of Information Technology.

The Department of Economics and Business Administration has earned accreditation from the American Association of Schools and Colleges of Businesses (AASCB), resulting in Morehouse being one of only a few liberal arts colleges in the country that have both AASCB accreditation and a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

In the past two years, Morehouse has achieved several notable milestones. In January 2001, The Black Enterprise magazine ranked Morehouse the number one college for educating African Americans in the nation. In April 2001, a team of students from Morehouse triumphed as national champions of the 2001 Honda Campus All-Star Challenge. In January 2002, Christopher Elders, a senior political science major from Kansas City, Missouri, became Morehouse College's second Rhodes Scholar.

As Morehouse celebrates 135 years of challenge and change, the College continues to deliver an exceptional educational experience that today meets the intellectual, moral, and social needs of students representing more than 40 states and 18 countries - a unique institution dedicated, as always, to producing outstanding men and extraordinary leaders to serve God and humanity.

Among the 10,000 alumni of the College, prominent alumni include:

Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General
Sheldon "Spike" Lee, filmmaker
Maynard H. Jackson, the first African-American mayor of Atlanta
Nima A. Warfield, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar from a Historically Black College or University
Robert Johnson, Jet Magazine Publisher
Lerone Bennett, Ebony Magazine Executive Editor
Edwin Moses, Olympic Gold Medallist
Louis W. Sullivan, former U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary