Inside a national period of tumult, at the crux of post-Civil War reconstruction of black life in America, Sarah Jane Woodson Early became a historymaker. She’d already been among the first black women in the country to earn a bachelor’s degree when she graduated from Oberlin College, one of the few institutions willing to educate non-white, non-male students. And when Wilberforce College in Ohio—the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) founded by African-Americans—hired Early in 1858 to lead English and Latin classes for its 200 students, she became the first black woman college instructor and the first black person to teach at an HBCU.
Each of the 101 HBCUs across 19 states carries its own legacy of brilliant black women who cultivated triumphant careers, sometimes whole movements, as leaders in classrooms, on staffs and in administrations.
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