Berea College’s founder, Rev. John G. Fee, was born into a wealthy slaveholding family in Bracken County, Ky. During his theological training at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, Fee’s fundamental grasp of Christianity was in direct conflict with the enslavement of human beings. Along with other Berea College founders, Fee argued that opposing slavery without challenging the American caste system would continue to perpetuate social inequality. Thus, in 1855, Berea College was founded—a unique institution promoting an interracial and co-educational learning environment against the horrific backdrop of slavery and caste in the antebellum South. His spiritual conviction drawn from Acts 17:26 that “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth” remains the College’s guiding motto today.
Creating a safe space for interracial education in a slaveholding state was courageous. During the postbellum period, Berea College reaffirmed this commitment to its founding values. From 1865 to 1892, the College intentionally enrolled an equal number of Black and white students and provided each a work assignment on campus to support their educational expenses and to dignify labor at a time when physical labor in the South served as a painful reminder of the former system of slavery.
When Kentucky State Representative Carl Day visited Berea College in 1904 and witnessed Black and white students learning and working together, he introduced a Jim Crow bill to segregate Kentucky’s schools aimed directly at Berea College, the only integrated college in Kentucky and in the South at the time. Despite opposition from Berea College and other advocates of interracial education, the bill was signed into law. The College challenged the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in 1908, the Court ultimately ruled against Berea. Undeterred, the College divided its endowment and opened the Lincoln Institute in Simpsonville, Ky., to continue educating Black students during this period of forced segregation.
When Kentucky made integrated education possible, Black students would return home to Berea four years before Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Upon their return, Berea continued to make history on a state and national level, especially during the racial upheaval of the 1960s. During this decade, the College adopted Eight Great Commitments. None was more meaningful and relevant to the decade of the 1960s than its Fifth Commitment: “To assert the kinship of all people and provide interracial education….” Through interracial education, the College did not exist in a sociopolitical vacuum but instead contributed in a meaningful way to the civil rights struggle when America needed social change.
When the Prince Edward County School District in Virginia closed its schools in the late 1950s because of its refusal to follow the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and integrate its school system, Berea, in the early 1960s, opened its doors to Black students from that county and enrolled some students in the Foundation School and College.
Along with its support of the Court’s desegregation decision, Berea was involved in the statewide campaign to challenge racial injustice. Blacks and whites from campus joined forces with other activists to end Jim Crow in public accommodations in the Commonwealth. A large contingent of Bereans participated in the 1964 March on Frankfort with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, Georgia Davis Powers and thousands of activists from throughout Kentucky to petition Gov. Edward Breathitt to support and pass a public accommodations law. The College’s action contributed to the eventual passage of the Public Accommodations Act of 1966 and the dismantling of a significant aspect of explicit racism throughout the state.
Another example of Berea challenging social injustice through interracial education is best remembered in its participation in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. Another diverse group of Bereans went to Selma, Ala.,
to support John Lewis and help other activists get into “good trouble.” They traveled from far and wide to hear Dr. King speak in front of the Alabama capitol building in a peaceful demonstration with banners advocating for social justice and American flags. They listened to him speak about how “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Berea occupied a unique historical space in the Black Freedom Movement, belying its humble origins as a small institution in the oft-overlooked Appalachian region. Berea’s activism in the Selma March contributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Berea’s 169-year history is a complex tapestry of struggle and triumph, conflict and resolution—all emanating from the belief that through interracial education in Kentucky and throughout this land, students gain from purposeful inclusion, harmoniously learning, working and residing together. Berea continues to be courageous and progressive because of its motto and Great Commitments. As Berea’s 10th and first female president, Dr. Cheryl Nixon eloquently stated, “the Great Commitments continue to serve as Berea’s North Star, our inspirational principles. Through the Great Commitments, we know who we are and the ideals we serve—and this sense of greater purpose guides us every day.”
Dr. Dwayne Mack is Berea College’s vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion.
