- Posted in All University
- Category: Spotlight NewsCampus News
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, PA – The Friends of Hosanna at Lincoln University and the Toni Morrison Society erected and dedicated a ‘Bench by the Road’ today at the historic Hosanna African Union Methodist Protestant (A.U.M.P.) Church.
The Bench by the Road Project, a memorial history and community outreach project of the Toni Morrison Society, was initially launched on the 75th birthday of the society’s namesake to create an outdoor museum that marks important locations in African American history both in the United States and abroad.
“This bench dedication is our opportunity to preserve the history of the church community from which Lincoln University, Chester County and our nation benefited,” said Dr. Cheryl Renee Gooch, Convener of the Friends of Hosanna at Lincoln University. “We are committing to public historical memory Hosanna’s involvement in three impactful 19thcentury social movements: the founding of Ashmun Institute (later renamed The Lincoln University); the Underground Railroad and the abolition of slavery; and the emigration of African Americans to Liberia.”
Built in 1843, Hosanna, which is located on Baltimore Pike near the front entrance of Lincoln, was once the social and spiritual center of the antebellum Hinsonville community of mostly free Blacks who helped established the neighboring university and played a key role in Liberian colonization. The church, also an Underground Railroad station, hosted abolitionist meetings while church members worked to assist runaways.
Its cemetery also contains graves of Hinsonville’s earliest families and Black Civil War veterans.
Bench plaque at Hosanna Church on Sept. 18, 2015.
In addition to Dr. Gooch, speakers also included Pennsylvania State Senator Andy Dinniman, Dr. Evelyn Schreiber, Toni Morrison Society, Dr. Craig Stutman, co-chair, The Bench By Road Project and assistant professor, Delaware Valley College, as well as Hersey Gray, a descendant of an early Hosanna church family.
“As we gather here today under a sunlit sky, and as we stand upon this hallowed ground, we commemorate the lives of Hinsonville’s nineteenth century African-American residents: Farmers, Artisans, Ministers and Missionaries; Mothers, Daughters, Fathers and Sons, all of whom came together to establish a bucolic community in which this church next to us, the Hosanna African Union Methodist Protestant Church, would serve as its heart, its soul, and its spiritual center,” said Stutman, who also praised Gooch’s ground-breaking research on Hinsonville, Lincoln University, the Hosanna Church as well as her leadership in organizing the event and Hinsonville descendant Hersey Gray for his and others involvement in the project. “Together, we all have been working to commemorate a site in which Hinsonville’s residents’ lives can be contemplated, reflected upon, and cherished, by community members and visitors alike.”
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Founded in 1854, Lincoln University (PA) is the FIRST of four Lincoln Universities in the world and is the nation’s FIRST degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU). The University combines the elements of a liberal arts and science-based undergraduate curriculum along with select graduate programs to meet the needs of those living in a highly technological and global society. Today, Lincoln, which enrolls a diverse student body of approximately 2,000 men and women, possesses an international reputation for preparing and producing world-class leaders such as Thurgood Marshall, the FIRST African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice; Lillian Fishburne, the FIRST African American woman promoted to Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy; Langston Hughes, the noted poet; Kwame Nkrumah, the FIRST president of Ghana; Nnamdi Azikiwe, the FIRST president of Nigeria and a myriad of others.