LU re-branding effort happens at same time as 150th anniversary

Lincoln University President Kevin Rome said last week it's a coincidence the school is launching its re-branding effort at the same time it celebrates its 150th birthday.

However, the story of the school's founding likely could play some role in whatever the new image looks like - and it was very much in discussion last Wednesday, at two Veterans Day ceremonies.

"Veterans Day is especially significant for Lincoln University because, if it had not been for the 62nd and 65th Colored Infantry soldiers, Lincoln University wouldn't be here today," President Kevin Rome said during Wednesday morning's ROTC Veterans Day celebration.

About an hour later, Jefferson City Fourth Ward Councilman Carlos Graham - who is LU's Campus and Community Relations director - talked about the school's founding during his comments at thr Blue Star By-Way Marker dedication outside Soldiers Hall.

He noted Lt. Richard Baxter Foster, a white leader of the Missouri 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry, would spend some of his spare time during the Civil War reading and "polishing his math skills," and many of the soldiers asked him to help them learn basic reading skills society had denied them.

While Graham didn't mention it, that denial came from Missouri lawmakers in 1848, when they passed a law prohibiting teaching reading, writing and math skills to African Americans in the state.

"After the war, many of them had learned just enough to be hungry for more knowledge - and they wanted to share that with others," Graham said.

So, as they were gathered in Texas after the war, waiting to be mustered out, they gave or pledged money to start the school that became Lincoln University - with some promising more than a year's pay.

Their donations and pledges raised approximately $6,000 - the equivalent of nearly $91,000 today - and was entrusted to Foster to launch the school.

"He originally went to St. Louis and he was met with opposition," Graham noted. "I won't say the red carpet was laid out here in Jefferson City - but Lt. Foster was able to find a location in an old, run-down schoolhouse" on the side of "Hobo Hill," where the Jefferson City Public Schools' Simonsen 9th Grade Center now stands.

That wooden schoolhouse where Lincoln began in September 1866 had been the first building for Jefferson City's public schools, as well.

In December 2012, when Rome visited Jefferson City as a candidate to become LU's president, he was asked how the story of LU's 19th century founding should be viewed in the 21st century.

He said almost three years ago that Lincoln should retain the "passion" of the founding soldiers. However, times have changed, and successful schools don't rely just on their history to help them move forward.

"As I've learned more about the 62nd and 65th Infantry soldiers, and the collaboration that they used with the white officers to found this university, it speaks to the collaboration that we need today in the community, with everyone coming together to sustain and maintain and grow this institution," Rome said when asked if the founders' story had affected his two-plus years as Lincoln's president.

"That's what created Lincoln and that's what will sustain it."

More than a decade ago, as then-President David Henson's administration was raising money to build the Soldiers' Memorial that now centers attention in LU's Quadrangle, officials determined Lincoln is the only U.S. university founded by soldiers.

Rome said last week it's a story "for this country and this world because - if you think about what those soldiers did - it's almost unimaginable that they, during the Civil War, at a time of civil unrest, decided in the midst of all the death and the war that (they) were going to start a college to educate people, and almost 150 years later it's still here.

"That's incredible, and that's a story that should be told all over the world - because it's that powerful."