New York Central
College
The First. The Forgotten. The Fearless.
On a hillside in Cortland County, New York, a small college opened its doors in the autumn of 1849. From its very first day, it admitted students of every race and both sexes — and seated Black professors at the head of its classrooms. No American college had ever done so before. Eleven years later it was gone.
New York Central College was founded by the Free Mission Baptists, a small abolitionist sect that refused fellowship with any church tolerating slavery. They built, in the village of McGrawville, an institution to embody the world they believed America ought to become: men and women, Black and white, free Africans and fugitive slaves, all studying Latin, Greek, mathematics, and moral philosophy under the same roof. It was a radical experiment — and for most of its neighbors, an intolerable one.
“We hold that the cause of the slave is the cause of humanity, and that learning is the birthright of every soul.”
William G. Allen
One of the first African American professors at a predominantly white American college, Allen became a national figure after his engagement to Mary King sparked one of the most famous interracial marriage controversies of the 1850s.