Celebrating Lincoln University: Keynote Address for Lincoln University of Pennsylvania Conference Jun 4-7, 2012. Chieke E. Ihejirika PhD. MJoTA 2012 v5n1 p0606
It is my pleasure to welcome you distinguished scholars and
ladies and gentlemen to this august event. What we are doing here these 4
days is a testimony to the nature and importance of this venerable institution
called Lincoln University. This National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
sponsored Lincoln University Summer Institute which we are inaugurating today
only validates what we all know, but need to celebrate, that is, that Lincoln
University is the crown jewel in black intellectual
accomplishment in America, Africa and the Caribbean –the 3 zones of
Lincoln’s tripartite heritage. This citadel founded in 1854 at the peak of slavery,
racism and segregation in America, has since blossomed to pioneer the goal and
mission of Black emancipation here and everywhere.
In 1854, Lincoln University started as a pioneer institution
in the cultural education for young Negro men. In 1933, LU reiterated that its
invitation to fellowship is only to those who would pioneer in service to their
race and to humanity. In 1935, the university still reaffirmed that: “The
College that would serve our country best in the present time must give to
those it educates a vision of nobility and importance in their life and
destiny. This is and has been the endeavor of Lincoln University Pennsylvania
during all the eighty years of its existence” (Crisis, 1935). Furthermore, at
the twilight of the twentieth century, Lincoln University under the last
administration reiterated its mission to produce leaders for the twenty-first
century. Today the current administration is determined to return the Lincoln
mystique. What is that mystique?
That mystique is the extraordinary character that
distinguished this institution and her alumni culminating in the now famous
assertion that: you can tell Lincoln men
but you can’t tell them much. The goals of this Summer Institute are to
highlight this rich history and legacy of Lincoln University by alerting the
neighboring communities of the gem in their midst, by reminding our university
community of our mission and most importantly by re-sensitizing our students to
their sacred duties of upholding the honor and integrity of this venerable
institution.
There is no gainsaying that since its inception Lincoln alumni
have dominated the who’s who in Black America at least until the desegregation
of schools in the fifties and sixties. Meanwhile, the same conditions that made
Lincoln necessary also drew Africans and Afro-Caribbean to America in pursuit
of higher education at the one and the first institution of higher learning in
the world founded to educate Black people. Lincoln therefore started with
educating the crème de la crème of Blacks in the world, and Lincoln quality’s
was so high that they referred to it as the Black Princeton. In those days Lincoln
competed and won debating contests with some of the world’s best colleges.
The challenges of today are no less daunting than those of
the past. They are only different. Just as Lincoln students of the past
championed civil rights and combated racism and other social ills and showed
excellence in restoring the dignity of man, current students should be reminded
to live up to the challenges of their own times. Such challenges include: recapturing
and maintaining the high profile of their alma mater, through academic
excellence, pioneering and championing economic independence or self-reliance
for Black America, completing the Pan-African enterprise by encouraging and
promoting political and economic integration of Africa, while helping to build Black
multinational corporations that can participate in the utilization of the vast and
untapped resources of Africa, United States and the Caribbean. The well being of
Africa must be part of Lincoln University’s goals because the institution that
John Miller Dickey established was to educate Black people for missionary
assignment in Africa. Evidently, sundry challenges still exist in Africa today requiring
Lincoln’s leadership.
Although it is impossible to exhaustively enumerate all the
firsts achieved by Lincoln University, especially as this is still ongoing,
given that more than half of our current students are the firsts in their
families to go to college.
However, we must not fail to mention some of Lincoln’s
singular achievements such as producing the Hon. Thurgood Marshall (class of
1930), the first Black Supreme Court Justice in the United States and two heads
of state of independent Africans countries, His Excellency Hon. Dr. Nnamdi
Azikiwe (also of the class of 1930), first president of Nigeria and Hon. Dr.
Kwame Nkrumah (class of 1939), first Prime Minister of Ghana. These African
pioneers came to Lincoln with a cohort of their compatriots who liberated and changed
Africa, by continuing the emancipator role they acquired at Lincoln.
Apparently,
there was something about Lincoln that ignited or elicited Afropatriotism or a
sense of self worth which challenged these leaders to be supremely self
confident and to believe in their innate capabilities even as they lived in a
highly segregated world in which Blacks were clearly marginalized. Lincoln
University was a major confidence booster. It instilled excellence in the
students and excellence has the unmistakable tendency to heal any lingering
feelings of inferiority complex that might exist in one’s psyche. At that early
time Lincoln man engaged in shouting contest that was their orientation into
audacity. The oratorical skills that came with that exercise served them
extremely well. The three famous alumni mentioned above were the epitome of
orators.
It was at Lincoln that many young African leaders rediscovered
themselves and found their roles as leaders. For instance, Azikiwe came to
Lincoln as Benjamin and returned as Nnamdi Azikiwe. At Lincoln Zik became, what
his younger mentee, Mbonu Ojike referred to as:
the evangelist of a New Africa. Ojike called Zik his hero who showed him
the way to America and Lincoln. While in Ghana, Zik recommended Lincoln to Nkrumah
who came to Lincoln as Francis, and left as a transformed Kwame Nkrumah. They took
the Lincoln crusade to Africa, where they not only liberated a continent, they also
replicated Lincoln University in several places. There are several institutions
established by Lincoln alumni all over America and Africa. One great example
which is perhaps one of the largest grand-institutions of Lincoln is the famous
University of Nigeria built by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe himself.
To really appreciate the legacy of Lincoln in the most
populous Black Country, Nigeria it is important to look at the motto of the
Azikiwe’s University of Nigeria, which is: “To seek the truth; to teach the
truth. To preserve the truth and thereby restore the dignity of man.” Zik was intricately involved in crafting the
vision and mission of the University of Nigeria. Dr. Azikiwe so loved his alma
mater, Lincoln University, that the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) which he
built is a replica of Lincoln University. President Azikiwe not only made the
Lincoln Lion the emblem the University of Nigeria, he also introduced America
and Lincoln to West Africa.
