Credit: NYPL digital gallery, New York Public Library
Established under Presbyterian auspices in 1854, the Ashmun Institute offered free black citizens educational and theological training denied them at other higher education institutions in the North. Later renamed Lincoln University, the school developed an international reputation, and through its missionary outreach cultivated a relationship with African countries that lasted through the twentieth century. The university became state-affiliated in 1972. Its alumni include Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, and educator Horace Mann Bond, who returned as president in 1945.
