July 12 …

From its humble beginnings in 1864 as Bible classes for newly freed Blacks to its dissolution on July 12, 1927, Roger Williams University (TN) played a vital role in advancing literacy, professional training, and religious leadership among African Americans in Tennessee and beyond.

Roger Williams University — officially founded in 1866 in Nashville — was created to educate formerly enslaved African Americans and to prepare them for leadership roles in ministry, education, and civic life. Originally established as the Nashville Normal and Theological Institute by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, the school occupied a 28-acre site on a knoll near Hillsboro Pike in Nashville. It was later renamed in honor of Roger Williams, the 17th-century advocate for religious liberty and founder of the First Baptist Church in America, in Providence, RI.

In its early years, Nashville Institute focused on training teachers and ministers. Daniel W. Phillips, a white minister and freedmen’s missionary from Massachusetts, taught the first classes, which included instruction in basic literacy, pedagogy, theology, and classical subjects.

In 1866, the Baptist Home Mission Board sponsored a small group of African American men as its first students, including Hardin Smith and Martin Winfield from Haywood County, TN. After they returned to their home communities of Nutbush and Brownsville, respectively, they became ministers and founded several Baptist churches in the area, as well as the first school for freedmen in the county.

As the demand for educated African American leaders grew across the South, Roger Williams University expanded its curriculum to include secondary and collegiate-level coursework. The university became one of the leading Baptist-supported schools for African Americans in Tennessee. Its graduates went on to serve as educators, pastors, physicians, and community leaders across the region and beyond. One graduate, for example, William Madison McDonald, became an influential Republican politician in Texas.

The university faced significant challenges in the early 20th century. In 1905, two devastating fires — widely believed to have been acts of arson — destroyed much of the campus, forcing the school to close temporarily. It reopened in 1908 at a new location in Nashville, but enrollment and financial stability declined in the following decades.

The economic strain of the Great Depression further weakened the institution. On July 12, 1927, the decision was made to transfer the few remaining students and teachers to another Baptist-supported school, which would later become LeMoyne-Owen College, in Memphis. Roger Williams officially closed in 1929.

Despite its relatively short, 63-year existence, Roger Williams University left a lasting legacy in African American education. The specific names of most of the Roger Williams alumni have been lost to history. Yet the institution’s impact is evident in the networks of Black schools and churches attributed to its former students.

Roger Williams University (TN) — at the forefront of educational equality in Tennessee — played a pivotal role in laying the groundwork for the development of Historically Black Colleges and Universities throughout the region and beyond.

Footnotes:

• American Baptist Home Mission Society, “History of Roger Williams University,” archival materials.
• Lovett, Bobby L.; Wynn, Linda T.; and Eller, Caroline, editors. “Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee (Second Edition)” (2021). Profiles/Papers for the Nashville Conference on African American History.
• Tennessee State University Libraries, “Roger Williams University Digital Collection.”
• “Roger Williams University (Tennessee),” Wikipedia.