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This Day in Black History: Feb. 18, 1867

Morehouse College was founded on Feb. 18, 1867.

Two years after the Civil War ended, in 1867, Baptist minister Rev. William Jefferson White founded the Augusta Theological Institute in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia.
The school's mission was to educate young Black men to teach and go into ministry. It changed locations and names before settling into Atlanta's West End community in 1885, where the school — now named Morehouse College — is situated today.

Morehouse College was named as such in 1913 in honor of Henry L. Morehouse, the corresponding secretary of the Northern Baptist Home Mission Society. Under the guidance of the college's first African-American president, Dr. John Hope, the school expanded its academic offerings and lured more professionals to join the faculty.

Today, the private all-male liberal arts college offers 27 majors in three academic divisions and has the honor of being the first historically Black college to produce a Rhodes Scholar.

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(Photo: Morehouse College/Facebook)

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