Photos courtesy of Berea College Special Collections and Archives
Berea College students and faculty march in Montgomery, Alabama.
Reverend John G. and Matilda Fee had strong convictions and undaunted courage. They needed both to establish Berea College in 1855.
Matilda’s family operated an Underground Railroad station in their home while she was growing up. As an adult during the Civil War, she hid her family’s belongings and faced a band of Confederate troops as a known abolitionist.
John wrote about being yanked from the pulpit mid-sermon for his beliefs by an armed posse. One of his church members was whipped with a switch before Fee narrowly escaped the same fate. This was not the only time.
Landowner and emancipationist Cassius Clay met the Fees and offered them a plot of 10 acres to establish a community. The vision of Berea—a church, school and town founded on human equality and interracial relationships—was not a popular notion for a lot of folks in Madison County before the Civil War. But from it came an educational institution with a utopian beginning, a rich history, and a deep commitment to offering hope and opportunity to those most in need.
Berea College holds fast to what it refers to as its eight Great Commitments—some established by those first dreamers—which weave throughout its history and guide its present growth. Four of those are the kinship of all people, serving Appalachia, educational opportunity and the dignity of labor.
The Kinship of All People
Reverend Fee had a dramatic and complete conversion to abolitionism as a young man. He wrote, “ ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ That single sentence made me an abolitionist … I saw that it was the truth of God, and I must embrace it, or lose my soul.” For the rest of his life, he fervently preached the gospel of impartial love.
Many abolitionists of the mid-1800s opposed slavery but were not egalitarian. Fee envisioned Berea as an interracial utopian experiment, a chance to prove that Blacks and Whites could live and learn together in relative harmony. Acts 17:26 is a foundational scripture for the school: “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”
The founders had established a church and a small school when plans were cut short by cataclysmic political forces. Because of death threats, the Berea project went on hiatus during the Civil War. But the founders later returned, reestablishing their work of social justice.
The experiment was successful and became a demonstration of community. By the 1870s, the school’s enrollment was half Black and half White students, the community was a patchwork of families of different races, and the school leadership included both races. There are records of Black families moving to Berea for educational opportunities for their children. Many graduates went on to teach at the burgeoning African-American schools.
The demonstration of community came to an end when the Kentucky General Assembly passed the Day Law in 1904. Targeted at Berea, it segregated higher education and made the school’s founding principle illegal. The college fought the state all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost. In the wake of that decision, Berea became an all-White school and gave substantial funds to establish a Black school, the Lincoln Institute, near Louisville.
When the Day Law was amended in 1950, Berea College began a long process of reintegration. Its interracial history did not protect it from the effects of the turbulent civil rights era. Students pushed to hold Berea accountable to its founding through sit-ins and demonstrations, imploring the school to hire additional Black faculty and teach Black culture and history.
The school itself seemed conflicted. Sharyn Mitchell remembers the awe of marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson in 1964 in Frankfort while she was a student at Berea. Though the school sponsored buses for students and encouraged participation, one of Mitchell’s professors scheduled a required test for that day. She received a zero on it.
The school is intentionally growing its non-White population to once again be a place for interracial community and study. In 2010, world-renowned scholar and native Kentuckian bell hooks established the bell hooks Institute at Berea College. The institute offers critical dialogue about understanding systems of oppression and exploitation around race, gender and class. At present, people of color comprise almost 40 percent of the college’s student body.
Berea College Photo Archive
Serving Appalachia
Appalachian residents experienced some of the same challenges accessing education as Blacks: financial hardships and the lack of a college-going culture. Especially after the enactment of the Day Law, Appalachia became a rich ground for White student recruitment.
As the focus of the school shifted to the southern mountains, cultural elements became part of its fabric. The Student Craft department cherishes and preserves traditional craft forms like weaving, woodwork and broom craft. The Loyal Jones Appalachian Center maintains extensive archives documenting craft, foodways and music.
Classes on regional literature, music and history infuse the academic curriculum. Underlying the instruction is a clear understanding that students can’t build a brighter future for Appalachia without grasping the complexities of its issues. Professors such as writer Silas House insist on examining the stereotypes and complicating the narratives.
There has long been a focus on serving the region. Many Berea College graduates return to their home communities to serve as teachers, nurses and farmers. Early Extension services brought lectures, libraries and recreational opportunities to rural areas. Now, the Partners for Education initiative reaches into communities throughout eastern Kentucky to help ensure educational success for all students.
Educational Opportunity
Berea College’s mission is to serve students of limited means, and enrollees have had difficulty affording college. Early students often took eight years to complete a four-year degree, interspersing their semesters of study with semesters of working.
In a bold move, the school formally abolished tuition in 1892 and began relying on donations. This tuition-free promise continues today and has made all the difference for thousands of promising students. The college’s current ability to offer a rigorous and quality education relies on a decision made in 1920. Investing all undesignated bequests directly to the endowment fund has put the college on firm financial footing, and that foresight created a fund that today finances 74 percent of the school’s operating budget.
The average family income of Berea students is less than $30,000. There is a vast income disparity in college graduation rates nationally. The bottom income quintile has an 11-12 percent college graduation rate. The top quintile has a 90 percent graduation rate. Berea College, which serves students in the bottom quintile, has a 65-70 percent graduation rate.
Administrators have realized throughout the school’s history that there are other barriers to college access for these students. In 1866, only five of the 307 students accepted were ready for college-level work. In early mixed-age classes, students advanced at their own pace, and Berea had a variety of tracks to meet student needs. Through the years, these included an academy grade school, a foundation high school, a normal school to prepare teachers, and a vocational school.
Dignity of Labor
The founders of Berea College enshrined in the first constitution the need for manual labor as a complement to mental labor. There were financial, practical and philosophical reasons for the emphasis. Manual labor was an equalizer for the interracial community and an important element of the founders’ Christian faith.
Part of John Fee’s vision was self-sufficiency. Student labor offered employment for low-income students and saved money for the fledgling institution. Early work at the dairy, farm and forest provided goods for the school community. Students helped cook and clean.
Phelps Stokes Chapel, a brick meeting structure completed in 1904, was a manual labor project. It was constructed entirely by students who quarried the limestone, felled the trees, formed the bricks, and crafted the furniture.
Now, Berea is one of the nine federally recognized work colleges in the country, along with Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes. The Berea Labor Program requires students to work 10-15 hours per week. Current students are employed across the campus, from facilities, student crafts and the service learning center to the president’s office.
Students are paid for their work and can use the funds toward their expected family contribution for room and board. When students graduate, they receive a work transcript in addition to their academic transcript, giving them a competitive advantage.
From its beginnings as a utopian dream of interracial harmony, Berea College has a habit of setting aspirational goals of justice for itself. It has been a beacon of hope and advancement for marginalized students for more than 150 years. It has met John Fee’s humble goal of “giving an education to all colors, classes, cheap and thorough.”