More than 40 descendants of Berea founder John Gregg Fee, from great grandchildren on up, are expected to participate as the College honors Fee during its annual Founders’ Day Convocation at 3 p.m. on Thursday, October 13, in Phelps Stokes Chapel.

The John G. Fee Award, established in 2001, has primarily honored African American alumni who attended Berea between 1866-1904 and went on to give distinguished service to their communities. As a part of Berea College’s 150th anniversary celebration during 2005-06, this year’s award will honor Fee himself.

The Founders' Day program will include remarks by College President Larry D. Shinn and representatives of the Fee family and will include performances by Berea’s Black Music Ensemble.

President Shinn will present the Founders’ Day award on behalf of the College to members of the Fee family. Each award is a walnut box with a cast-bronze medallion featuring the African "sankofa," a symbol of the importance of retrieving and understanding heritage. Berea College Woodcraft designed and crafted the boxes and Berea artist Ken Gastineau designed and created the medallions. Inside each box is a table runner in a traditional pattern hand woven by students in the College’s weaving industry.

Family members from as far away as New York and California will be attending the event, which also will be a sort of “Fee family reunion,” and could possibly bring together some descendants who previously have never met. The College will provide a “hospitality room” for family members to share with one another photos, family trees and memorabilia. Fee descendants interested in family research also will have an opportunity to explore documents and photographs related to Fee, his wife, Matilda, and Berea’s early history contained in the College’s Special Collections at Hutchins Library.

Berea’s 1855 founding by Rev. Fee, an abolitionist, began what would become the first school in the South to admit black and white men and women on an equal basis.

Born in 1816 as the son of a northern Kentucky farmer and slave-owner, John G. Fee’s study of the Christian Scriptures while at Lane Theological Seminary led him to reject his upbringing and to embrace what he called “the gospel of impartial love.” Central to this gospel are the two Great Commandments to love God and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. Taking this gospel to heart, Fee decided that all persons are truly equal in God’s sight. It was a difficult and costly leap of faith for Fee to become an abolitionist in the mid-1800s South. Despite being disowned by his family, dismissed as a pastor by his church’s denomination and enduring repeated attacks of physical violence, Fee persisted in his views.

In 1844, John Fee married Matilda Hamilton. The couple had seven children, three of whom bore offspring. Their descendants have served society as lawyers, educators, civil rights advocates and physicians, among other professions, and been trustees of Berea College.

Fee came to Madison County, started a church and founded the community of Berea in 1854, with a gift of land from emancipationist Cassius M. Clay. Fee, along with others who conceived and opened the early schools in Berea in 1855 and drew up a charter for Berea College, was driven out of Berea by an angry mob of residents from northern Madison County in 1859.

During the Civil War, Fee made plans to return and raised money for the future college. He also taught and preached to black soldiers in the Union Army stationed at Camp Nelson, an experience that helped shape Fee’s religious and educational ideas. One of those black soldiers, Angus Augustus Burleigh, became Berea’s first black student in 1866, when the Berea Literary Institute opened. According to its first catalog, of the 187 students enrolled, 96 were black and 91 white. By 1869, the new school had become Berea College. Fee continued to labor for social equality for African Americans in Berea and across the nation until his death in 1901.

Berea College is distinctive among institutions of higher learning as the first interracial and coeducational college in the South. Berea charges no tuition, providing a high quality education to students of great promise but with limited financial resources. All students must work 10 hours weekly, earning money for books, room and board. Equal opportunity and diversity have been at the heart of Berea’s mission for 150 years, expressed in its motto “God has made of one blood all peoples of the Earth.” Berea College’s primary service region is southern Appalachia, but students come from all states in the U.S. and in a typical year, from more than 60 other countries representing a rich diversity of colors, cultures and faiths.

Founders' Day is sponsored by the Berea College President's Office. All are welcome to attend.

For more information, visit Berea’s website at www.berea.edu