Paul Quinn College
Waco, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Texas' Oldest Liberal Arts College for Negroes. Originally Connectional High School and Institute for Negro Youth; opened in Austin, April 4, 1872,by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, under Bishop J.M. Brown (1817-1893), who served 1872-1876 as president. Founders were Bishop R. H. Cain, the Revs. J.H. Armstrong, W.R. Carson, J.V. Goins, Abraham Grant, William Leake, and Henry Wilhite. Later known as Waco College and located at 8th and Mary streets, the school taught newly freed slaves blacksmithing, carpentry, tanning, and the like. In 1881 it was moved to present site and renamed for Bishop William Paul Quinn (1788-1873), an early Missionary to the Western States. The expanded curriculum was taught in the first building erected from a "ten cents a brick" campaign, expressing the dreams of a desperately poor people. Additional buildings arose as service and value of the college became apparent, with growth accelerated since 1962 under leadership of Bishop O.L. Sherman. Illustrious alumni and students honor the Paul Quinn Motto: "A past to cherish, a future to fulfill."
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded April 4, 1872, in Austin by the African Methodist Episcopal Church as an institute for Black youth, this school taught newly freed people trades like blacksmithing, carpentry, and tanning during Reconstruction. Moved to Waco in 1881 and renamed for Bishop William Paul Quinn, its first building rose from a 'ten cents a brick' campaign that channeled the hopes of a desperately poor community. It grew into Texas's oldest liberal arts college for African Americans, sustained across generations by its motto, 'A past to cherish, a future to fulfill.'
Why it matters
Paul Quinn College embodies the determination of freed people and the Black church to build higher education for themselves in the face of poverty and exclusion.
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Related people
- · Bishop William Paul Quinn
- · Bishop J. M. Brown
- · Bishop R. H. Cain
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
G. W. Carver High School
Waco, TX
Opened in 1956, G. W. Carver High School educated some 500 African American children of the La Vega district and honored the famed scientist and educator George Washington Carver. Its students excelled, and in 1967 its award-winning marching band traveled to Montreal's Expo '67 and carried home the grand prize as champion American high school band. The school closed in 1970 when federal courts ordered integration, then lived on as a community center, special-education site, and finally a neighborhood school.
A. J. Moore High School
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In 1875 Professor A. J. Moore of Paul Quinn College, troubled by the lack of quality schooling for Waco's Black children, began teaching small groups in his home. The effort grew into Waco's first school for Black youth, moving from a repurposed frame hospital building into a brick schoolhouse in 1923 and taking Moore's name. Over nearly a century it graduated more than 4,000 students before closing in 1971, sending alumni into medicine, law, education, and countless other fields.
Mount Zion United Methodist Church
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In the years just after Emancipation, eighteen formerly enslaved men and women gathered to worship under an oak tree on the banks of the Brazos, having once been confined to the balcony of a white congregation's sanctuary. In 1866 they secured their release from that arrangement and chartered churches of their own; the Methodists among them dedicated Mount Zion's first sanctuary in 1873. The congregation grew quickly, spinning off other Black Methodist churches and tying itself closely to the education of local African Americans.
Doris Miller
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