Relatives of 1st Black College President plan scholarship

AP | The organizers of a sculpture trail in a Vermont city aimed at celebrating local history have dedicated a sculpture of the first African American president of an American college, Martin Henry Freeman, who was born there.

Freeman was a native of Rutland, Vermont, and one of his descendants said at the Thursday ceremony that his family is creating a scholarship fund for students there, the Rutland Herald reported.

A larger-than-life marble bust of Martin Henry Freeman, a scholar, is the 8th sculpture to be added to the Rutland Sculpture Trail. It was designed by Massachusetts artist Mark Burnett, who is Black, carved by local artist Don Ramey, and installed in November.

“Martin Henry Freeman was an educator, a curator of minds, a light in the darkness to so many. He represented this up to his final moments with his last words being ’I can teach no longer,” said Robert Henry Dennis III, Freeman’s great-great-great-grandson, at the dedication ceremony.

The family is establishing the Martin Henry Freeman Memorial Scholarship to serve needy students from the Rutland area but hopes to expand its scope, he said.

Organizers of the sculpture trail could not find a descendant of Freeman’s when planning the project, but Dennis found them when stories about the sculpture turned up in a Google search he was doing about his ancestor.

Martin Henry Freeman is honored with a sculpture. PHOTO/Olivia Lyons

Freeman was born in Rutland in 1826. Freeman’s father fought in the American Revolution, one way for enslaved men to win their freedom. The younger Freeman attended Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating at the top of his class in 1849. He became president of the Allegheny Institute and Mission Church in the Pittsburgh area in 1856, later named Avery College.

“Despite his brilliance and his personal success, Martin Freeman faced the same kind of prejudice and systemic racism as every other black person in America,” Steve Costello, who came up with the idea for the trail, told the newspaper.

Freeman supported the colonization of Liberia for Black Americans and abruptly resigned from the college in 1863 with a plan to teach at Liberia College.

Dennis, who represented Liberia as a sprinter in the 1996 Olympics and now works as a lawyer in Washington, addressed those who were part of the sculpture project.

“Although we were not involved in the creation of this sculpture, we as a family are committed to working with you to memorialize our remarkable ancestor and ensure that his legacy lives on,” he said.