Berea College and Interracial Education:
The First 150 Years - GSTR 210

Berea came into existence because Cassius Clay invited John G. Fee to Madison County, Kentucky, to establish an anti-slavery settlement (Ellis, Everman, and Sears 105).² Fee, the son of a slave owner, viewed slavery as “the sum of all villainies” (108).³ He desired to build anti-slavery churches and “to have a good school here in central Kentucky, which would be to Kentucky what Oberlin is to Ohio, Anti-slavery, Anti-caste, Anti-sum, Anti-secret societies, Anti-sin” (133).⁴ These tasks would be accomplished in a county which had 1,881 slaveholding families who owned a total of 6,118 slaves in 1860 (139).⁵

Clay and Fee eventually parted company because of their differences over the gradual (Clay) or immediate (Fee) termination of slavery. Nonetheless, in 1855 Fee built a one-room school. The first articles of incorporation were adopted by July, 1859, but because the leaders of the community were forced to leave Kentucky in December 1859, the document was not recorded until 1866. The first bylaw stated: “The purpose of the College shall be to furnish the facilities for a thorough education to all persons of good moral character” (Peck and Smith 13). ⁶ The second by-law declared that the college “shall be under an influence strictly Christian, and as such, opposed to sectarianism, slaveholding, caste, and every other wrong institution or practice” (Nelson 15).⁷ In a letter to Rev. J.A. Rogers, the first principal, Fee declared that “opposition to caste meant the co-education of the (so-called) ‘races’” (15).⁸ As to whether Negroes would be admitted if any applied, Edward Fairchild, the first president of Berea College, stated, “the question was not embarrassed by legal considerations, for there was no law of Kentucky forbidding education to free colored persons, or even to a slave, with his master ’s consent” (Hall and Heckman 331).⁹

The constitution did not mention that the different divisions of Berea College were supposed to serve any particular race or region; however, the first catalog in 1867 mentioned two groups: recently emancipated Negroes and White people of eastern Kentucky. In his inaugural address, Fairchild stated: “We are aware that this feature of the school fails to meet the approbation of many of our fellow citizens,” but he did not “doubt that in the end this characteristic . . . will be most highly approved and popular” (Nelson 17).¹⁰ He also stated “that Negroes are to have and ought to have, the same civil and political rights as white men, and the sooner and more thoroughly both classes adapt themselves to this idea, the better for all” (Nelson 15).¹¹ On March 6, 1866, 43 white students were enrolled in the institution; 18 left when four black students enrolled at the school (Ellis, Everman, and Sears 211).¹² Like Burdett, other ex-slaves followed Fee from Camp Nelson, a Union camp located in Jessamine County, Kentucky. Fee “had determined that Berea would be the place where Black people could own property of their own. He promoted ‘interspersion,’ with blacks and whites being interspersed about the country’s side and in the town” (Ellis, Everman, and Sears 218).¹³ Fee stated, “I do not propose to feed him (the ex-slave) but put an axe and land within his reach and let him work out his salvation-help him to a home” (Ellis, Everman, and Sears 219).¹⁴ In addition, an 1872 Board of Trustee resolution did not prohibit social relations “between the races [as long as both parties were discrete] . . . under existing circumstances” (Burnside 12).¹⁵

Thus, in the first stage of the institution’s history the interracial commitment meant educating Blacks and Whites in the same environment. The founders believed that as Christians, they could do no less. This attitude continued from 1890-1892 during the tenure of William B. Stewart, the second president. If the composition of the student body is used as a criterion for judging the success of this experiment, then Berea was extremely successful. For most years before 1892 there were more Black students than Whites enrolled at the school, although in the college division there were more White students. However, during the second stage of Berea ’s history, the story was different.

In 1892, William Goodell Frost became Berea’s third president. After his retirement, Frost wrote that he was not sure that he would ever have come to Berea “if it had not been for [his] ancestral and personal interest in befriending the colored race” (Peck and Smith 68).¹⁶ However, Frost believed in a different definition of interracial education or co-education of the races as it was known then.

Frost found an institution in financial trouble. In addition to an “air of dilapidation about the place, the vacant rooms in the dormitories, and the empty seats in the classes and the Chapel” (Peck and Smith 48)¹⁷, many of the original donors had died and the new donors were interested in serving the Southern Appalachian region, not educating Black students. Frost’s task was finding enough financial support to continue “the peculiar work of Berea.” The number of Black students was decreased and the number of White students was increased to obtain a student body similar to the racial composition of the state of Kentucky, seven Whites for every Black person (Nelson 18).¹⁸ Frost felt his actions of a shift in emphasis “appealing more for the mountaineers” (Nelson 25)¹⁹ were consistent with the earlier actions of the founders and did not mean that he was not committed to interracial education. In fact, Peck and Smith argue that this shift in emphasis began with Fairchild who gave loving care to his Negro students and paid an increasing attention to the people of the hills (66).²⁰ In a speech in 1895, Frost stated, “We have tried our simple plan for twenty-nine years, and the evil consequences have not come; and our way is the way of the Christian world at large” (Nelson 25).²¹ In his annual report for 1902, Frost stated that “this College now stands before the public as the representative school for the mountains, as Hampton and Tuskegee stands as the representative institutions for the colored people” (Peck and Smith 72).²² A statement was added to Article II of the school’s constitution in 1911 recognizing the southern mountain area as Berea’s special field (Peck and Smith 79).²³

During Frost’s administration, segregation was emphasized on campus. For example, the Board of Trustees rescinded its resolution of 1872 pertaining to interracial dating on campus. Later, Frost remarked that students “did the proper thing by separating themselves by race in their eating and living habits” (Nelson 19).²⁴ Frost stated in regards to hiring a Black professor, “A professorship is not the best place in which to demonstrate the powers of the Negro . . . We shall do [him] poor service . . . if for the sake of having colored professors we lost our chance to instruct mountain youth” (Nelson 21).²⁵

Fee’s viewpoint was clear: Frost was betraying the thoughts and actions of the founders. Fee wrote in 1899,

Let me say that the unique work of Berea College is not ‘effacing sectional lines’ . . . and helping white people or the (“contemporary ancestors in the southern mountains”)… but effacing the barbarous spirit of caste between colored and white at home. Let the friends of Berea College demand faithfulness to the original design of the college. (Nelson 23)²⁶

The on-campus discussion became moot on January 12, 1904, when Representative Carl Day introduced the Day Law in the Kentucky House of Representatives that applied specifically to Berea. It became “unlawful for any person, corporation, or association of persons to maintain or operate any college, school, or institution where persons of the White and Negro races are both received as pupils for instruction” (Peck and Smith 51).²⁷ Initially, Frost considered moving the school to Ohio or West Virginia. However, he was dissuaded from pursuing this option. On November 9, 1908, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Day Law was constitutional. After the decision, Berea became an all White institution. Lincoln Institute, located in Shelby County, Kentucky, was incorporated in 1910 as a school for Negroes.

By the end of the second stage, there were no Black students at Berea College. Outside forces played a crucial role, but Frost was leading the school towards segregation before the Day Law. The only difference was that his method would have taken longer. Frost was a Christian who was primarily interested in the number of White students enrolled at the school. He would accept a ratio of seven Whites to one Black, but not a one to one ratio as existed in the first stage.

The Third Stage