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The
Berea Story
John G. Fee |
The startled railroad surveyor dropped his
notebook as his surveying instrument focused on a brick structure
extending above the forest canopy.
Ladies Hall, Berea College's
first brick building, seemed totally out of place in the woodland
setting.
"Whoever put up that building in this wilderness must have
had faith," the
surveyor observed.
The surveyor's experience came some 20 years
after the Rev. John G. Fee started a one-room school in 1855
that eventually would
become Berea College. Fee, a native of Bracken County, Ky., was
a scholar of strong moral character, dedication, determination
and great faith. He believed in a school that would be an advocate
of equality and excellence in education for men and women of
all races.
Fee's uncompromising faith and courage in preaching against slavery
attracted the attention of Cassius M. Clay, a well-to-do Kentucky
landowner and prominent leader in the movement for gradual emancipation.
Clay felt he had found in Fee an individual who would take a strong
stand on slavery.
In 1853, Clay offered Fee a 10-acre homestead
on the edge of the mountains if Fee would take up permanent residence
there. Fee accepted
and established an anti-slavery church with 13 members on a ridge
they named "Berea" after the biblical town whose populace
was open-minded and receptive to the gospel (Acts 17:10).
Cassius Clay
Cassius M. Clay |
In 1854, Fee built his home upon the ridge. In 1855, a one-room
school, which also served as a church on Sundays, was built on
a lot contributed by a neighbor. Berea's first teachers were recruited
from Oberlin College, an anti-slavery stronghold in Ohio. Fee saw
his humble church-school as the beginning of a sister institution "which
would be to Kentucky what Oberlin is to Ohio, anti-slavery, anti-caste,
anti-rum, anti-sin." A few months later, Fee wrote in a letter, "we...eventually
look to a college -- giving an education to all colors, classes,
cheap and thorough."
Fee worked with other community leaders to develop a constitution
for the new school, which he and Principal J. A. R. Rogers insisted
should ensure its interracial character. It also was agreed that
the school would furnish work for as many students as possible,
in order to help them pay their expenses and to dignify labor
at a time when manual labor and slavery tended to be synonymous
in the South.
The first articles of incorporation for Berea College were adopted
in 1859. But that also was the year Fee and the Berea teachers
were driven from Madison County by Southern pro-slavery sympathizers.
Fee spent the Civil War years raising funds for the school; in
1865, he and his followers returned. A year later, the articles
of incorporation were recorded at the county seat, and in 1869
the college department became a reality.
The first catalog, issued
for 1866-67, used the corporate name "Berea
College," but the title "Berea Literary Institute" was
printed on the cover because it was thought to convey better "the
present character of the school." Enrollment that academic
year totaled 187 -- 96 black students and 91 whites. For several
decades following the Civil War, Berea's student body continued
to be divided equally between white and black students, many
of whom went on to teach in schools established solely for African-Americans.
In 1886-87, the school had three divisions: Primary, Intermediate
and Academic. Students could pursue a college preparatory course,
a shorter course, or a teachers' course. In 1869-70, five freshmen
were admitted to the College Department, and in 1873 the first
bachelor's degrees were granted.
Berea's commitment to interracial
education was overturned in 1904 by the Kentucky Legislature's
passage of the Day Law, which
prohibited education of black and white students together. When
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Day Law, Berea set aside funds
to assist in the establishment of Lincoln Institute, a school
located near Louisville, for black students. When the Day Law
was amended in 1950 to allow integration above the high school
level, Berea was the first college in Kentucky to reopen its
doors to black students.
By 1911, the number of students seeking
admission to Berea was so great that the trustees amended the
College's constitution
to specify the southern mountain region as Berea's special field
of service. The commitment to Appalachia, however, began as early
as 1858 when Rogers, after a trip through the mountains, identified
the region as a "neglected part of the country" for
which Berea was founded to serve.
Curricular offerings have varied
at Berea to meet changing needs. In the early 1920s, in addition
to its College Department, Berea
had a high school that included ungraded classes for students
who had not had educational opportunities, an elementary school,
a vocational school and a Normal School for teacher training.
Although the general mission of serving students with financial
need continued, units and divisions were reorganized through
the years. In 1968, Berea discontinued its elementary and secondary
programs and now focuses entirely on undergraduate college education.
The First Berea College Building
The First Berea College Building |
Berea's distinctive commitments and educational
programs have brought the College national recognition. Above
all, the excellence of Berea's academic program earns acclaim.
U.S. News & World Report has repeatedly named Berea the No.
1 regional college in the South, The
New York Times, The Chronicle
of Higher Education, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, The Times of
London, and the "Solutions" segment of ABC
World News have focused national and international attention on many aspects
of the contemporary Berea experience. Full-tuition scholarships
provided to all students, the effectiveness of the work program
and students' involvement in community service projects are among
the features highlighted. Such reports are expected to continue
as Berea alumni distinguish themselves in all walks of life and
in many parts of the world.
Fee was the first president of Berea's
Board of Trustees, serving from 1858-92, and Rogers was the
first principal, 1858-69. The
first Berea College president was appointed in 1869. Since
then there have been eight presidents:
- Edward Henry Fairchild, 1869-89,
- William B. Stewart, 1890-92,
- William Goodell Frost, 1892-1920,
- William J. Hutchins, 1920-39,
- Francis S. Hutchins, 1939-67,
- Willis D. Weatherford, 1967-84,
- John B. Stephenson, 1984-94,
and
- Larry D. Shinn, 1994 to the present.
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