Spelman Seminary Receives College Charter

Spelman Seminary in Atlanta, founded in 1881 to educate formerly enslaved Black women, received an expanded charter and grew into a full collegiate institution during the late 1880s, becoming Spelman College. The institution embodied the conviction that Black women deserved rigorous higher education at a time when both race and gender barred them from most universities. Spelman became the oldest historically Black college for women in the United States.