Bishop College
| Type | HBCU |
|---|---|
| Active | 1881–1988 |
| Location |
Marshall and Dallas, Texas, United States 32°40′41″N 96°45′19″W / 32.6781°N 96.7552°WCoordinates: 32°40′41″N 96°45′19″W / 32.6781°N 96.7552°W |
| Mascot | Tiger |
Bishop College was a historically black college, founded in Marshall, Texas, United States, in 1881 to serve students in east Texas, where the majority of the black population lived. In 1961 it moved to Dallas, and the big city setting helped it attract more students. It operated until 1988, when a financial scandal caused it to lose accreditation and funding.
In 2006 the president of Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky reached out to Bishop College alumni, proposing to have them "adopt" his college as an alma mater. He offered scholarships to their descendants, with a chance to have their diploma read "Bishop College", as part of his effort to increase minority enrollment.
The college was founded by the Baptist Home Mission Society in 1881 as the result of a movement to build a college for African-American Baptists. The movement was started by Nathan Bishop, who had been the superintendent of several major school systems in New England. Baylor University President Rufus C. Burleson secured a pledge of $25,000 from Judge Bishop to start the college during a meeting of the National Baptist Education Society meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A committee of Baptist ministers from East Texas, where most African Americans then lived, selected a location in Marshall, on land belonging to the Holcomb Plantation, Wyalucing.
For its first several decades, Bishop's faculty and administration was staffed by European Americans. The first African American appointed as president was Joseph J. Rhoads, who started in 1929 and served through the Great Depression and World War II. During his presidency, Bishop phased out the high school preparatory programs associated with the college, which had worked to compensate for failures in public education. He emphasized the college's new two-year ministerial program. During the 1930s and 1940s, the ministerial program evolved into the Lacy Kirk Williams Institute, which moved to Dallas when the college moved in 1961. The Lacy Kirk Williams Institute evolved into a week-long seminar which attracted well-known preachers including Jessie Jackson and Martin Luther King, Sr. in 1975. (source, Lloyd Thompson's dissertation for North Texas University, p 34-35)
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