Lincoln Institute Complex | |
Nearest city | Simpsonville, Kentucky |
---|---|
Area | 21.8 acres (8.8 ha) |
Built | 1910 |
Built by | Lynn Gruber |
Architect | G. W. Foster & W. V. Tandy (Berea Hall) |
Landscape architect | Frederick Law Olmsted |
Architectural style | Tudor Revival |
MPS | Shelby County MRA |
NRHP reference No. | 88002926 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 27, 1988 |
Lincoln Institute was an all-black boarding high school in Shelby County, Kentucky from 1912 to 1966. The school was created by the trustees of Berea College after the Day Law passed the Kentucky Legislature in 1904. It put an end to the racially integrated education at Berea that had lasted since the end of the Civil War. The founders of the school chose the name Lincoln when they realized that there was no educational institution in the state of Kentucky named after the president. [2]
The founders originally intended Lincoln to be a college as well as a high school, but by the 1930s it gave up its junior college function. Lincoln offered both vocational education and standard high school classes. The students produced the school's food on the campus' 444 acres (180 ha).
The rise of integrated education as a result of the Civil Rights Movement reduced the need for general high schools like Lincoln, and in 1966, the Lincoln Institute closed. The campus was used for the Lincoln School for the Gifted, a school for gifted but disadvantaged children, from 1966 to 1970 which was led by former science teacher Samuel Robinson. Since 1972, the old Lincoln campus has been used as the Whitney M. Young Jr. Job Corps Center, a U.S. Department of Labor Job Corps Center. The Center opened in 1972 and is named for Whitney M. Young Jr., a civil rights leader and Lincoln Institute alumnus. [3] The center provides academic and career training to students on a residential and non-residential basis. The center is administered as part of the Job Corps programs Philadelphia region. [3]
Whitney M. Young Jr. was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and director of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971. He was born on the campus of the Lincoln Institute in 1921 when his father, Whitney Young Sr., was president of the institute and was later an alumnus.
The campus also houses the Whitney Young Birthplace and Museum, a National Historic Landmark that presents the story of the Lincoln Institute and Whitney Young Jr. Just adjacent to the entrance to the campus a historical marker and memorial commemorates the massacre of 22 members of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry (USCC) by Confederate guerrillas during the American Civil War.
Today, the Lincoln Foundation, which was established along with the school, carries on the work of the Lincoln Institute by providing educational programs for disadvantaged youths in the Louisville area and preserving the Lincoln Institute's historic legacy.
Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. It was integrated from as early as 1866 until 1904, and again after 1954.
Simpsonville is a home rule-class city in Shelby County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is located 8 miles west of Shelbyville, Kentucky and 23 miles east of Louisville situated along U.S. 60. The population was 2,484 during the 2010 U.S. Census.
United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total by the end of the war in 1865, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army, according to historian Kelly Mezurek, author of For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops. "They served in infantry, artillery, and cavalry." Approximately 20 percent of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35 percent higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.
An African American is a citizen or resident of the United States who has origins in any of the black populations of Africa. African American-related topics include:
Whitney Moore Young Jr. was an American civil rights leader. Trained as a social worker, he spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively worked for equitable access to socioeconomic opportunity for the historically disenfranchised. Young was influential in the United States federal government's War on Poverty in the 1960s.
Benjamin Lawson Hooks was an American civil rights leader and government official. A Baptist minister and practicing attorney, he served as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1977 to 1992.
West Virginia State University (WVSU) is a public historically black, land-grant university in Institute, West Virginia, United States. Founded in 1891 as the West Virginia Colored Institute, it is one of the original 19 land-grant colleges and universities established by the second Morrill Act of 1890, which evolved as a diverse and inclusive campus. Following desegregation, WVSU's student population slowly became more white than black. As of 2017, WVSU's student body was 75% white and only 8% African-American.
Kentucky State University is a public historically black land-grant university in Frankfort, Kentucky. Founded in 1886 as the State Normal School for Colored Persons, and becoming a land-grant college in 1890, KSU is the second-oldest state-supported institution of higher learning in Kentucky. In fall 2019, total undergraduate enrollment was 2,029 with a total graduate enrollment of 142.
Major General Cassius Marcellus Clay was an American planter, politician, military officer and abolitionist who served as the United States ambassador to Russia from 1863 to 1869. Born in Kentucky to a wealthy planter family, Clay entered politics during the 1830s and grew to support the abolitionist cause in the U.S., drawing ire from fellow Southerners. A founding member of the Republican Party in Kentucky, he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the U.S. minister to Russia. Clay is credited with influencing Russian support for the Union during the American Civil War.
The 5th United States Colored Cavalry was a regiment of the United States Army organized as one of the units of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War. The 5th USCC was one of the more notable black fighting units. It was officially organized in Kentucky in October 1864, after its first two battles. It was commanded by Colonel James Brisbin until February 1865, when he took over the 6th US Colored Cavalry. His executive officer, Louis Henry Carpenter, commanded the regiment until 20 March 1866.
The Whitney Young Birthplace and Museum is a historic house museum on the campus of the former Lincoln Institute in rural Shelby County, Kentucky near Shelbyville, Kentucky. It was the birthplace and childhood home of Whitney M. Young Jr. (1921–71), an American civil rights leader. Young became prominent for his leadership of the National Urban League between 1961 and 1971. The house is now managed by the Lincoln Foundation, a successor to the Lincoln Institute, as a museum to its and Young's history. The house appears on the National Register of Historic Places and was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1984.
Kellom Elementary School, formerly called the Paul Street School, is a public school located at 1311 North 24th Street in the Near North Side neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Alumni of Kellom include Fred Astaire, Roger and Gale Sayers, Bob Gibson Dr. Catherine Pope, and Brenda Council. Still maintaining a largely African American student body population, the school was regarded as a "black school" in pre-Civil Rights Movement-era Omaha.
Lincoln Hall is the administrative center of Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Built in 1887 and named in honor of Abraham Lincoln, it was declared to be a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1974 in recognition of the college's role as the first school of higher education in the nation established to provide a racially integrated educational environment.
Camp Nelson National Monument, formerly the Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park, is a 525-acre (2.12 km2) national monument, historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Lexington, Kentucky. The American Civil War era camp was established in 1863 as a depot for the Union Army during the Civil War. It became a recruiting ground for new soldiers from Eastern Tennessee and enslaved people, many of whom had fled their living conditions to be soldiers.
Louis Henry Carpenter was a United States Army brigadier general and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in the American Indian Wars.
Whitney M. Young School is a selective-enrollment public school in Cleveland, in the U.S. state of Ohio, notable as the city's first public gifted and talented school.. Named after Whitney M. Young Jr., a prominent civil rights leader, the school is located in Cleveland's Lee-Harvard neighborhood.
The Day Law mandated racial segregation in educational institutions in Kentucky. Formally designated "An Act to Prohibit White and Colored Persons from Attending the Same School," the bill was introduced in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Carl Day (D) in January 1904, and signed into law by Governor J.C.W. Beckham in March 1904. As well as prohibiting students of color from attending the same school as white students, the law prohibited individual schools from operating separate black and white branches within 25 miles of each other.
Black Kentuckians are residents of the state of Kentucky who are of African ancestry. The history of Blacks in the US state of Kentucky starts at the same time as the history of White Americans; Black Americans settled Kentucky alongside white explorers such as Daniel Boone. As of 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, African Americans make up 8.5% of Kentucky's population. Compared to the rest of the population, the African American census racial category is the 2nd largest.
Eleanor Young Love was an American librarian from Kentucky. The daughter of Whitney Young and the sister of Whitney Young Jr., she worked at the Lincoln Institute, a boarding high school for African American students founded in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, during the period when Jim Crow laws were enforced. Her father was its president. She received her degree from Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University, her M.Ed. from the University of Louisville, and her D.Ed. from the University of Illinois.
Whitney M. Young Sr. was an educator from Kentucky. He was the father of civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr. and the first African American director of the Lincoln Institute, a school for African American students near Simpsonville, Kentucky, from 1935-1966.