Map of Lincoln University CDP

Lincoln University (LU) is a public state-related historically black university (HBCU) near Oxford, Pennsylvania. Founded as the private Ashmun Institute in 1854, it has been a public institution since 1972 and is the second HBCU in the state, after Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Lincoln is also recognized as the first college-degree granting HBCU in the country. Its main campus is located on 422 acres near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university has a second location in the University City area of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides undergraduate and graduate coursework to approximately 2,000 students. It is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

While a majority of its students are African Americans, the university has a long history of accepting students of other races and nationalities. Women have received degrees since 1953, and made up 66% of undergraduate enrollment in 2019.

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History

In 1854, John Miller Dickey, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson, a Quaker, founded Ashmun Institute, later named Lincoln University, in Hinsonville, Pennsylvania. They named it after Jehudi Ashmun, a religious leader and social reformer. They founded the school for the education of African Americans, who had few opportunities for higher education.

John Miller Dickey was the first president of the college. He encouraged some of his first students: James Ralston Amos (1826–1864), his brother Thomas Henry Amos (1825–1869), and Armistead Hutchinson Miller (1829/30-1865), to support the establishment of Liberia as a colony for African Americans. (This was a project of the American Colonization Society). Each of the men became ordained ministers.

In 1866, a year after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Ashmun Institute was renamed Lincoln University. The college attracted highly talented students from numerous states, especially during the long decades of legal segregation in the South. As may be seen on the list of notable alumni (link below), many furthered their in careers in fields including academia, public service, and the arts. President William Howard Taft gave the commencement address at Lincoln on June 18, 1910.

In June 1921, days after the Tulsa race massacre, President Warren Harding visited Lincoln to deliver the commencement address. He spoke about the need to seek healing and harmony in that incident’s aftermath, as well as to honor Lincoln alumni who were part of the 367,000 African American servicemen to fight in World War I. The school newspaper noted Harding’s visit as “the high water mark in the history of the institution.”

In 1945 Dr. Horace Mann Bond, an alumnus of Lincoln, was selected as the first African-American president of the university. During his 12-year tenure, he continued to do social science research, and helped support the important civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education, decided in 1954 by the US Supreme Court. His relationship with the collector Albert C. Barnes was essential in ensuring the university’s role in the management of his art collection.

From 1854 to 1954, Lincoln University graduates accounted for 20% of African American physicians and over 10% of African American lawyers in the United States.

The university marked its 100th anniversary by amending its charter in 1953 to permit the granting of degrees to women. True coeducation was slow to arrive, however, and women still constituted only 5% of the student body as late as 1964.

In 1972 Lincoln University formally associated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a state-related institution.

In November 2014, university president Robert R. Jennings resigned under pressure from faculty, students and alumni after comments relating to issues of sexual assault. Jennings was also the subject of a couple of no-confidence votes by faculty and the alumni association in October 2014.

On May 11, 2017, the Lincoln University board of trustees announced the appointment of Dr. Brenda A. Allen, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Winston-Salem State University as Lincoln’s new president. A 1981 alumna of Lincoln, Allen’s inauguration was held for October 20, 2017.

In 2020, MacKenzie Scott donated $20 million to Lincoln University. Her donation is the largest single gift in Lincoln’s history.

Lincoln University Road Map

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See also