African-American Activism at the College of Wooster

by Scott McLellan

The College of Wooster campus community is known by its members and members of the town community as a center of social activism. A welcome to all people as potential students regardless of “race, color, or sex,” upon its founding shows the College’s historical desire to be an equitable space for all.¹  This is especially apparent in the history of Black and African American movements for reform at the College of Wooster. From the Galpin Takeover and the Black Manifesto to the development of the Black (now Africana) Studies department, students and faculty have kept the fires of change alive, pushing to dismantle traces of institutional racism* and to better the lives and educations of Black students at the College of Wooster.

¹ Notestein, Lucy, Wooster of the Middle West Volume One 1866-1910, Kent State University Press (Kent,1971).