Claflin University

Overview

Claflin University is a private historically Black liberal arts college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, founded in 1869 by Alonzo Webster, a Methodist Episcopal minister who had come from Vermont to teach at the Baker Bible Institute in Charleston, a training school for African American ministers. Claflin College opened its doors on October 27, 1869, and the Baker Biblical Institute merged into it the following year. Webster received a state charter to establish a college for freed slaves to take their place as full citizens; Claflin is the oldest HBCU in South Carolina and says it was the first college in the state to admit students regardless of race or gender, as well as the first Black college to offer architectural drawing courses. It is named for two Methodist churchmen, Massachusetts Governor William Claflin and his father, Boston philanthropist Lee Claflin, who provided much of the funding to purchase the school’s original 43-acre campus.