year, two years after its founding, the school began admitting African Americans. The college experienced financial distress, and Rev. John Keep and William Dawes were sent to England to raise funds in 1839–40. A nondenominational seminary, Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology (first called the undergraduate Theological Department), was established alongside the college in 1833. In 1965, the board of trustees voted to discontinue graduate instruction in theology at Oberlin, and in September 1966, six faculty members and 22 students merged with the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Oberlin's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter was significant. In 1844, Oberlin Collegiate Institute graduated its first black student, George Boyer Vashon, who later became one of the founding professors of Howard University and the first black lawyer admitted to the Bar in New York State.
The college's treatment of African Americans was inconsistent. Although intensely anti-slavery, …
