Wiley was founded in 1873 by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to educate formerly enslaved people and their children, and it is often described as the oldest historically Black college west of the Mississippi. Under president Matthew W. Dogan it became, in 1933, the first Black college in Texas to earn an 'A' rating from the Southern Association, and in the 1930s Melvin B. Tolson's debate teams took on and beat top white universities, a story later told in the film The Great Debaters. Alumni include civil rights leaders James Farmer Jr. and Heman Sweatt. This short walk visits the historic marker, the Carnegie-funded library, early twentieth-century halls rebuilt after a 1906 fire, the modern chapel, and a marker to the school's first graduate.
Wiley University
Texas campuses and the stories they hold.
Wiley University is a private college or university in Marshall, Harrison County. It is one of 2 degree-granting colleges and universities TexasRoam maps in Harrison County.
The site sits at 32.5373, -94.3765 near Marshall. The nearest cataloged historic site is Wiley College (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include H.B. Pemberton, Ebenezer Methodist Church, and Starr Family Home.
Wiley was founded in 1873 in Marshall by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and bears the name of Methodist bishop Isaac Wiley; the Handbook of Texas calls it the oldest Black college west of the Mississippi. It began south of town, where the Wiley College Cemetery still marks the first site, and in 1880 moved to a seventy-acre tract closer to downtown Marshall, receiving its charter in 1882 while still teaching high school as well as college classes. White missionary teachers ran the school for its first two decades until Isaiah B. Scott became its first Black president in 1893; his successor, Matthew W. Dogan, led Wiley for 46 years. After a 1906 fire destroyed five of its eleven buildings, students helped build a president's home and a Carnegie-funded library that served as Marshall's only public library until 1974. The school dropped its high school and industrial classes in 1929, when it became Wiley College, and in 1933 it was the first Black college in Texas rated "A" by the Southern Association. Under poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson its debate team won national attention, capped by a 1935 victory over the University of Southern California that inspired the 2007 film The Great Debaters, and alumnus James Farmer Jr. became a national civil rights leader who helped organize the Freedom Rides. In the spring of 1960 Wiley and Bishop College students staged sit-ins in Marshall, including at the Harrison County Courthouse, in what the Handbook of Texas calls the largest sit-in in the state. In 2023, marking its 150th year and adding graduate programs, the college reclaimed the name Wiley University.
Sources: en.wikipedia.orgtshaonline.org
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