Underground Railroad supports black college endowment campaign Aug. 9, 2004 A UMNS Feature
By Linda Green* Methodist heroes worked side-by-side to help liberate blacks through the Underground Railroad and Rhonnie Hemphill wants to build on that history. “Methodists made a tremendous contribution to black liberation through the Underground Railroad, and then made a comparable contribution in the post-slavery era by fostering
higher education for African Americans,” Hemphill said. Hemphill, vice president of development for the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation, is preparing to lead a national campaign to raise funds to increase the endowment for the 11 historically black colleges and universities of the United Methodist Church. After two years of studying the feasibility of such a campaign with limited resources, Hemphill decided to use the Underground Railroad and the role Methodists played in the effort to assist in the fund raising as a way to create awareness and to raise operational funds. The 2000 United Methodist General Conference authorized the denomination’s Board of Higher Education and Ministry to raise $300 million from private programs for the endowment. The United Methodist Higher Education Foundation, a board affiliate, took the lead in the campaign. Last August, the foundation and the board reported that because of the current economy and fiscal constraints, only $7,575 had been raised for the historically black colleges. When the boards learned of the economic challenges, it established a task force to study the campaign’s feasibility and contributed resources to retain a firm to conduct the study. The foundation sponsored two initiatives during a pre-campaign phase to raise money for United Methodist-related historically black colleges. One was a four-day seminar at the Underground Railroad Research Institute at Georgetown (Ky.) College that brought church and African-American history faculty members from nine colleges and one theological school to the institute to learn from one another about the Underground Railroad and to explore ways to increase pre-campaign awareness at those institutions. “There is no institution in this world that teaches better African-American history than the historically black colleges and universities,” Hemphill said. “We have 11 of them and we have a very special market here.” While each school probably teaches African-American history and covers the same ground in a different way, Hemphill said a coordinated curriculum in teaching the Underground Railroad would “build a super marketing component for the campaign.” He said if the schools came together in such a way, they could package their intellectual property into a revenue stream for the campaign through distance-learning technology. From the seminar, a curriculum committee, comprised of faculty of black colleges and universities and the Underground Railroad Institute, was formed to enhance the teaching of the Underground Railroad at those schools. The other initiative was a black-tie event, “Celebrating History and Embracing the Future,” in Kentucky, which launched the first phase of the national endowment campaign. The event honored Methodism’s commitment to freedom and paid tribute to Methodist heroes of the Underground Railroad. It included an overview of the Underground Railroad, nationally and in Kentucky, a state with a wealth of underground history. According to Hemphill, using the Underground Railroad as the campaign theme is a reminder of freedom in people’s lives. “Combining freedom with higher education for people of color begs to a void in society that we are still struggling with, which is providing education to all people on an equal basis,” he said. “Freedom transcends culture and lines of color.” Thus far, approximately $50,000 has been raised in the campaign. “It has been a slow process,” he said. “This is something the church has never done before. “We are still trying to get people on the same page to get this campaign moving.” Boosting the endowment coffers is critical because the facilities at some of the historically black colleges need renovation and refurbishment to accommodate the influx of first-generation college students and “those from disenfranchised societies,” Hemphill said. Rust College, Holly Springs, Miss, established in 1866, was the first Methodist historically black college. The institution was one of more than 70 schools at all levels for African Americans that the Methodist church established between 1866 and 1882. The Underground Railroad has become a popular subject across the country in recent years. Hemphill believes the interest is occurring because schools across the country are either acknowledging ties to slavery or determining the roles they played in the Underground Railroad. People also are taking pilgrimages along paths that slaves took toward freedom. “History is funny,” Hemphill said. “It can be buried for decades and no one wants to uncover the pages of history until someone discovers that some good things happened. It becomes interesting, appealing and everyone wants to learn about it.” He said that the historically black colleges of the United Methodist Church could play an important role in the education of people and contribute to the fund. “People want to know if the Underground Railroad was a real train, was there a central station, and something about the passengers and about what was going on,” Hemphill said. In his learnings, Hemphill found it significant that Methodists as a single denomination contributed more to the positives of the Underground Railroad than any other church. He said that the male and female Methodist heroes in the Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist churches worked as one along the Underground Railroad. “The Underground Railroad is a great example of where the Methodist family did not totally split.” Methodists played a leading role in the effort, most notably through the actions of William Still, the father of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Calvin Fairbanks, Richard Allen, Harry Hoosier, Josiah Henson and Bishop Hubbard Hinde Kavanaugh. “The campaign for historically black colleges can be seen as a continuation of these soul-stirring commitments,” he said. For more information on the endowment campaign for historically black colleges and universities of the United Methodist Church, contact United Methodist Higher Education Foundation at (800) 811-8110 or visit www.umhef.org, the foundation’s Web site.
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer in Nashville, Tenn. News media contact: Linda Green, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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