Beriah Green

Beriah Green, Jr. (March 24, 1795 – May 4, 1874) was an American reformer and noted abolitionist.

Greene was born in Preston, Connecticut. He graduated from Middlebury College, Vt., in 1819, and then studied for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary (1819–20) but his religious beliefs did not agree with any denominational creed.

In 1821 he was made professor of sacred literature in Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio. The American Colonization Society (ACS) was very controversial at Western Reserve College. Students and faculty often had debates on the subject. At this time, William Lloyd Garrison became a great influence to Green. In 1832, Green used the chapel four Sundays in a row to attack the ACS and its supporters. This angered many trustees and clergymen.

Expecting to be fired, Green resigned in 1833 and became the president of the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York, a Presbyterian institution. Green accepted the presidency at Oneida on two conditions: he was allowed to preach immediatism and he was allowed to accept African-American students. The Oneida Institute was a manual labor college founded in 1829, but it also had some liberal classical classes.

As president, Green dramatically changed the college by accepting numerous African Americans, more than any other college during the 1830s and 1840s. Green did not believe that it was right to have separate labor schools for blacks and whites. This belief led him to attempt to get Gerrit Smith to merge his black manual labor college with the Oneida Institute. This made Oneida a hotspot for abolitionist activity. Many future well-known black leaders and abolitionists were students at Oneida while Green was president. These include William Forten, Alexander Crummell, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and Rev. Amos Noë Freeman.

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