William H. McAlpine
| William H. McAlpine | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June , 1847 Buckingham County, Virginia, U.S. |
| Died | November 3, 1905 (aged 58) Selma, Alabama, United States |
| Occupation | Minister, educator |
| Religion | Baptist |
William H. McAlpine (June 1847 - November 3, 1905) was a Baptist minister and educator in Alabama. He was a founder and the second president of Selma University. He was a leader in the Baptist church and a founder and president of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention. Later in his life he was Dean of the Theological Department at Selma.
William H. McAlpine was born into slavery in Buckingham County, Virginia near Farmersville in June 1847. About the age of three he, his mother, and his younger brother was sold to Robert McAlpine in Coosa County, Alabama. He never knew his father. In 1855, Robert McAlpine died and his property dispersed, with William separated from his mother and moved to Talladega County, Alabama. He would not again see his mother until 1874. His new master, Augustus McAlpine, was a doctor, and William remained with the family until the end of the American Civil War in 1865. As a child, William worked for his master as a nurse and thus stayed close to the house. Here he was able to receive a basic education in the company with white children who were taught at home, and learned to read and write.
In 1864 he converted to the Baptist religion and joined a white church in Talladega. In 1866, finally as a free man, he took work as a carpenter and entered Talladega College, working evenings and weekends. His career forced him to leave the school in 1874, six months before he would have graduated. In 1868 he attended his first convention of the Colored Baptist Missionary Society of Alabama, which he continued to attend in the future. In 1869 he was licensed to preach and in 1871 he became pastor of a black church in Talladega and he helped the church erect its first building. He then took a pastorship at a church in Jacksonville, Alabama and he also taught public schools there. Further, he helped organize a number of Baptist associations in North Alabama.
In November 1873, the State Colored Baptist Missionary convention met in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where McAlpine presented a resolution to establish a University, which would become Selma University. A concurrent white convention recommended the black Baptists give the money they had raised for the university to their care and not to undertake the project alone, but McAlpine convinced the convention that it they should not follow the advice of the white group and to establish the institution themselves. McAlpine was selected at the 1874 convention in Mobile, Alabama to travel throughout the state to raise money for the school, and again at the 1875 convention. At the 1874 convention, a board of trustees was elected for the body consisting of McAlpine, Holland Thompson, Henry J. Europe, Charles Octavia Boothe, and Alexander Butler. In 1877 he took charge of the Marion Baptist church and he again canvassed the state to raise money. His years of fundraising was a great success. In the fall of that year the State convention was in Eufaula, where a decision was made to purchase the old Fair Grounds of Selma, Alabama as the schools location. In 1881, McAlpine was elected to be president of the University, later called Selma University, which he held for two years, after which he resigned so that a more scholarly leader could be selected, and he returned to Marion Baptist church. He was succeeded as president by Rev. Edward M. Brawley.
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