Morehouse Legacy
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 66-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, cabinetmaker and journalist, with the encouragement of The Rev. 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, trained minister and physician, was appointed the Institute’s first president by William Jefferson White.
In 1879, Augusta Institute was invited by The Rev. Frank Quarles to move 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 the second 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, where Confederate soldiers staged a determined resistance to Union forces during William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous siege of Atlanta in 1864. In 1897, Atlanta Baptist Seminary became Atlanta Baptist College during the administration of Dr. George Sale, a Canadian who served as the third and youngest 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 the fourth president in 1906. A pioneer in the field of education and civil rights, 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 he 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. Upon the death of the founder in 1913, Atlanta Baptist College was named Morehouse College in honor of Henry L. Morehouse, the corresponding secretary of the Northern Baptist Home Mission Society.
Dr. Samuel H. Archer became the fifth 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 the second 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 two 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. Charles E. Merrill served as chairman of the College’s board of trustees.
In 1967, Dr. Hugh Morris 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, University of Michigan and Boston University. Gloster founded the Morehouse School of Medicine, which became an independent institution in 1981. He appointed Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan its first dean; Sullivan later became the school’s first president. Dr. Gloster is recognized as the founder of Morehouse School of Medicine.
In 1987, Dr. Leroy Keith Jr., class of 1961, was named eighth 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. Under Dr. Keith’s leadership, the “A Candle in the Dark” Gala was founded in 1989 to raise scholarship funds.
In October 1994, Dr. Wiley Abron Perdue, a member of the class of 1957 and vice president for business affairs, was appointed the third 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, finalized 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 Eugene Massey, class of 1958, was named ninth president of Morehouse. Massey is a noted physicist and is the former senior vice president and provost of the University of California System. Massey called on the Morehouse community to renew its longstanding commitment to a culture of excellence. Under his leadership, Morehouse embraced the challenge of providing its students a quality 21st century education and the goal of becoming one of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges.
Academically, Morehouse has expanded its dual-degree program in natural sciences with the Georgia Institute of Technology to include other institutions and social science majors; launched the Center for Excellence in Science, Engineering and Mathematics with a $6.7-million U.S. Department of Defense grant; and established a new African American studies program.
The Division of Business Administration and Economics is accredited by the American Association of Schools and Colleges of Business (AASCB), resulting in Morehouse being one of only a handful of liberal arts colleges in the country that has both AASCB accreditation and a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. The College also has earned its re-accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
In 1993, Morehouse established the Center for International Studies, which was renamed in 1998 for former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Jackson Young. In 1995, the College established The Leadership Center, which includes diverse programs that foster leadership skills and encourage community involvement. The Leadership Center building opened its doors in August 2005. Its occupants include The Leadership Center at Morehouse College, the Division of Business Administration and Economics, the Bonner Office of Community Service, the Emma and Joe Adams Public Service Institute and the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs.
Under President Massey, Morehouse also has improved its physical infrastructure. Campus enhancements include improvements to dormitories, the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel and classroom buildings; major renovations to the Archer Hall Student Center and Chivers-Lane Dining Hall; and the construction of Davidson House Center for Excellence, the John H. Hopps Technology Tower, a five-hundred-car parking deck and campus bookstore.
In the past several years, Morehouse has achieved several notable milestones. In December 2001, Christopher Elders, class of 2002, became Morehouse’s second Rhodes Scholar. In the fall of 2003, Oluwabusayo “Tope” Folarin, class of 2004, was named the College’s third Rhodes Scholar. Also in 2003, The Wall Street Journal named Morehouse one of the top 50 most successful schools across the nation when it comes to sending students to well-known, well-respected graduate and professional schools. In 2004, Black Enterprise magazine ranked Morehouse College the No. 1 college in the nation for educating African American students for the third consecutive term.
On February 14, 2003, Morehouse launched the public phase of The Campaign for a New Century, the most ambitious campaign in the history of the College. When the Campaign culminated in June 2006, the College exceeded its $105-million goal, raising $118 million. Also in June 2006, Morehouse received the coveted collection of personal papers of alumnus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which includes more than 7,000 handwritten notes, letters and sermons.
On July 1, 2007, Dr. Robert Michael Franklin Jr., class of 1975, became the 10th president of Morehouse. He is a former president of the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), the graduate theological seminary of the Atlanta University Center consortium. At Emory University, Franklin served as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics and was a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory School of Law.
As Morehouse celebrates 142 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 distinguished institution dedicated, as always, to producing outstanding men and extraordinary leaders to serve humanity with a spiritual consciousness.
