Sarah Jane Woodson Early - First Black Female Professor

Sarah Jane Woodson Early

First Black Woman Professor,

Wilberforce University

When hired in 1858 at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Woodson became the first African-American woman college instructor.[1] She was also the first black to teach at an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and the only black to teach at an HBCU before the Civil War. Her brother, Rev. Lewis Woodson, was a trustee and founder of the college. It had been established in 1855 to educate black youth, as a collaboration between the white and black leaders of the Cincinnati Methodist conference and the AME Church in Ohio, respectively. Woodson's brother Lewis Woodson was among the original 24 founding trustees. Wilberforce closed for two years during the Civil War because of finances. It lost most of its nearly 200 subscription students at the beginning of the war, as they were mostly mixed-racechildren of wealthy planters from the South, who withdrew them at that time.[During the war, the Cincinnati Methodist Conference could not offer its previous level of financial support, as it was called to care for soldiers and families.

The AME Church purchased the college and reopened it; this was the first African-American owned and operated college. Sarah Jane Woodson taught English and Latin. She also served as Lady Principal and Matron.

After the Civil War, in 1868, Woodson began teaching in a new school for black girls established by the Freedmen's Bureau in Hillsboro, North Carolina.

In 1893, Woodson spoke at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. Her speech was entitled "The Organized Efforts of the Colored Women of the South to Improve Their Condition." Woodson was one of five African American women invited to speak at this event, along with: Fannie Barrier Williams, Anna Julia Cooper, Hallie Quinn Brown, and Fanny Jackson Coppin.