Black People Politics : Politics From The Black Perspective

Clyde Coger said:

Social Group: Politics From The Black Perspective, will hold its eighth meeting in Chat this Saturday(June 18th) at 7:00 PM Eastern time for one hour to discuss Politics...All desteeonians are cordially invited to attend...​

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Amnat77

Spelman College Founders

(Left to right) Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, schoolteachers and Baptist missionaries from New England, founded the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary (later Spelman College) in the basement of Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church on April 11, 1881. Packard served as president from 1881 to 1891; Giles was Spelman's second president from 1891 to 1909.

Spelman College's history began on April 11, 1881. With the help of Frank Quarles, pastor of Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, schoolteachers and Baptist missionaries from New England,
Courtesy of Spelman College Archives
Spelman College Founders
started a school in the church's basement. The school was supported by the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society and named the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary. With $100 from the First Baptist Church of Medford, Massachusetts, the founders embarked on a noble mission—providing quality education to black women and girls. Ten women, some of whom were former slaves, and one young girl, eager to acquire basic educational skills, constituted the first student body. The basement soon overflowed, and it became imperative to move to larger and more suitable quarters.

Through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller, whom Packard and Giles met at a church conference in Cleveland, Ohio, the school was able to relocate from its basement quarters to a nine-acre site once used as army barracks by Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the school expressed its gratitude for Rockefeller's generosity by changing the name of the school to Spelman Seminary in honor of the parents of his wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller.

The school was legally organized with a charter and a board of trustees in 1888 under the presidency of Packard.

In 1891 Harriet Giles succeeded Sophia Packard and served as president of Spelman for eighteen years. During her tenure the school enrolled 800 students,
Courtesy of Spelman College Archives
Class of 1887
employed 30 teachers, and owned property valued at $90,000. Curricular offerings expanded to include high school and college programs of instruction, teacher training, missionary training, and nurses' training. The seminary conferred its first high school diplomas in 1887 and its first college degrees in 1901. Giles's death on November 12, 1909, marked the end of the era of the founders.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1460&sug=y

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