Founded in 1870 by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, Benedict College occupies a twenty-acre campus on Harden Street in Columbia, across Taylor Street from Allen University. As an important missionary college in the South, it was one of a number of African-American schools in the late 19th century that refused to follow the "Hampton model" with its emphasis on industrial, rather than intellectual, education for African-Americans. The first African-American president of Benedict was the Reverend J.J. Starks, appointed in 1930. Here, the campus is pictured in a postcard view around 1910.
Courtesy of the Howard G. Woody Postcard Collection.
