Wilberforce University

Ohio in 1847, but the school failed to thrive and closed in 1863.
In the years leading up to the American Civil War there was a growing movement to establish schools of higher learning for black people in the Northern United States as part of the abolitionist movement to end slavery. This was in stark contrast to the Southern United States where it was illegal for blacks to obtain an education.
The first of these schools were Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (founded 1837) and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (founded 1854). The interest in founding a similar school in Ohio was partly generated by a series of race riots in Southern Ohio that occurred in 1826, 1836, and 1841. The Cincinnati Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church believed that the establishment of a university for blacks in Southwestern Ohio could do much to solve racial problems in the region, and were also wanting to provide opportunities to improve the lives of the approximately 50,000 black methodists living in the area overseen …