Welcome to Lincoln University's
SESQUICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY DISTINCTIONS: A LEGACY OF PRODUCING LEADERS

• Established in 1854 as the nation's first Historically Black College University (HBCU)
  .
• Graduated 20 percent of Black physicians and more than 10 percent of the country's Black attorneys during its first 100 years.
  
  
• First college or university in the United States to produce an alumni publication, in November 1884. Early noted writers for Lincoln's Alumni Magazine included abolitionist, orator and educator Frederick Douglass.
• Nationally recognized for producing African Americans with undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences (biology, chemistry and physics); computer sciences; biological and life sciences.
  
  
• First black university to become affiliated with the College Entrance Examinations Board, in 1950.
  
  
• Lincoln University alumni have held key leadership positions at more than 35 colleges and universities and scores of prominent churches.
  
  
• At least ten Lincoln graduates have served as United States ambassadors and missions chiefs.
  
  
• First African American to be elected to the Pennsylvania legislature (1910), Harry W. Bass, an 1886 Lincoln graduate.
  
  
• First African American Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967), Thurgood Marshall, Lincoln class of 1930.
  
  
• Distinction of having eight alumni who founded the following U.S. or foreign universities: South Carolina State University, Livingstone College (North Carolina), Albany State University (Georgia), and Texas Southern University; Iheme Memorial College, Ibibio State College, and University of Nigeria (all three in Nigeria); and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana).
  
  
• The only university to have two alumni honored with commemorative, first-class stamps by the U.S. Postal Service: Langston Hughes, a 1929 graduate and world- acclaimed poet and author; and Thurgood Marshall, class of 1930, and the first Black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
  
  
• First president of Nigeria (1963), Nnamdi Azikiwe, Lincoln class of 1930.
  
  
• First president of Ghana (1960), Kwame Nkrumah, Lincoln class of 1939.
  
  
• First African American woman promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Navy (1998), Lillian E. Fishburne, Lincoln class of 1971.
  
  
• Founder of Crossroads Africa (1957), the model for the U.S. Peace Corps., Rev. James Robinson, Lincoln class of 1935.
  
  
• Served in Pennsylvania's legislature and as editor and publisher of The Philadelphia Tribune (1922- 1970), the nation's oldest black-owned newspaper, Eugene Washington Rhodes, a 1921 Lincoln alumnus.
  
  
• Cabell (Cab) Calloway III, left Lincoln in 1930, and became a world-renowned entertainer and bandleader.
  
  
• Roscoe Lee Browne graduated from Lincoln in 1946 and later became a celebrated actor of stage and screen.
  
  
• Distinguished individuals who have received Lincoln University honorary degrees for their accomplishments, include world-famous physicist and Nobel Prize-winner Albert Einstein (1946); Civil Rights Leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1961); Civil Rights and Labor Union Leader A. Philip Randolph (1967); Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and Civil Rights Leader Rev. Jesse Jackson (1969); Entertainer and Social Activist Richard "Dick" Gregory (1971); Internationally Renowned singer Marian Anderson (1976); U.S. Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (1985); Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the Republic of South Africa (1990); Rosa Parks, affectionately hailed as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" (1992); and Award-winning Playwright August Wilson (1996).
  
  
• Three U.S. Presidents have visited Lincoln University: William H. Taft, on June 18, 1910, delivered the Commencement Address; Warren G. Harding, on June 6, 1921, addressed the graduating class and dedicated the Alumni Arch, a memorial to Lincoln men who served in World War I, and the front gateway to campus; and Gerald Ford toured the campus in 1978.
  
  
• First African American to be granted faculty tenure at Harvard University (1968), Dr. Martin L. Kilson, Jr., Lincoln class of 1953.
  
  
• First African American appointed to the position of U.S. Postal Inspector (1962), Charles A. Preston, Jr., Lincoln class of 1950.
  
  
• First group of Peace Corps trainees arrived on Lincoln's campus for their training session on February 7, 1963.
  
  
• In 1967, former Lincoln University Professor Charles V. Hamilton and Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael collaborated to write and publish their groundbreaking book on black empowerment, Black Power.
  
  
• In 1967, world-acclaimed poet Langston Hughes died and bequeathed his personal library to his alma mater, Lincoln University.
  
  
• First woman to chair Lincoln University's Board of Trustees (1999 to 2003), Adrienne G. Rhone, Lincoln class of 1976.
  
  
• Elected in 2002 as Speaker of the California State Assembly, the Honorable Herb J. Wesson Jr., Lincoln class of 1999.
  
  
• First African American Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1997), Roderick L. Ireland, Lincoln class of 1966.
  
  
• Major League Baseball and Negro Baseball Leagues Hall of Famer Monford "Monte" Irvin, attended the University in the early 1940s. Irvin was a star outfielder with the New York Giants in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
  
  
• Robert Walter "Whirlwind" Johnson graduated from the University in 1924 and later became a noted educator and tennis instructor, including for tennis greats Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson.
  
  
• Pennsylvania's first African American U.S. Congressman (1958), Robert N.C. Nix, Sr., and a 1928 Lincoln graduate.
  
  
• Pennsylvania's first African American judge (Philadelphia Municipal Court, in 1947), Herbert E. Millen, Lincoln class of 1910.
  
  
• First African American faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania (1963), William Fontaine, a 1930 Lincoln graduate.
  
  
• First African American to serve as mayor of Atlantic City, N.J., James L. Usry, a 1946 Lincoln graduate.

  *Lincoln's track and field programs have won an unprecedented 15 NCAA Division III championships.

  *Oscar Brown, Jr. a 1940 Lincoln graduate, became a renowned singer, actor, playwright and director in the 1960s.

  *Gil Scott-Heron, a popular jazz-funk musician who often sings about socio-political issues, attended the University in the late 1960s.

  *Robert Warner, Jr., the father of television and movie star Malcolm Jamal Warner, graduated from Lincoln in 1972.