Early, Talbert, Henderson and Hill:
Four Black Classicists at Wilberforce University

Michele V. Ronnick (Wayne State University)

In addition to Scarborough and Du Bois at Wilberforce were other faculty who were involved in Greek and Latin studies. This paper will provide a brief sketch  including images of 4 of them.

1) Sarah Jane Woodson Early (1825-1907) graduated form Oberlin College in 1856 and joined the faculty at Wilberforce with the title of “Preceptress of English and Latin” in 1858. She is considered to be the first black woman to serve on a college faculty in the U.S. She left academic life after her marriage to Reverend Early in   .

2) Horace Talbert (1853-1917) was born in slavery in Lexington, KY. After study at Berea College and courses in Greek and philosophy at Boston University, he accepted  the position of  chair of languages at Wilberforce. He served the school in other capacities. He became secretary  in 1897 and  in  1904 was key to  gaining Andrew  Carnegie’s donation for the library which building now houses the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center. He taught Latin from time to time.

3) George Washington Henderson (1850-1936), born in slavery in Clarke County VA, was the first black to graduate from the University of Vermont (1877) and is said to be the first black member of Phi Beta Kappa in the U.S. After completing his M.A. at his alma mater in 1880, he won a fellowship to the University of Berlin. After earning a Bachelor in Divinity at Yale University in 1883 Henderson taught for a time at Straight University and was Dean of Theology at Fisk University for five years. Form 1909 until his retirement in 1932, he was professor of Latin, Greek and Ancient Literature at Wilberforce.

4) Charles Leander Hill (1906-1956) was born in Urbana, OH and earned his B.A. at Wittenberg University in 1928. In 1931 he took a degree in divinity from Hamma University. Later while on a fellowship at the University of Berlin  Hill found  and translated Anthony William Amo’s Latin dissertation on apathy. In 1938 he received his doctorate in philosophy from Ohio State University. An article  Hill wrote on Amo was published in the A.M.E. Church Review  in 1955 and he made translations of Philip Melachthon’s Latin. See The Loci Communes of Philip Melanchthon (Boston, 1944) and Melanchthon’s Selected Writings (Minneapolis, 1962). He was the 13th president of Wilberforce (1947-1956).