History

Oliver L. Coleman began the education of Blacks in the Palestine Baptist Church at Gibsland in 1887, beginning with eight students in grades 1-8.  Coleman College, called “the first black institution of higher learning in North Louisiana,” opened in 1890.   It drew support from local Baptist churches, but ultimately much of the funding came from the American Baptist Home Missions Societies of Chicago, Boston, and New York.

 

By 1916 Negro Education lists enrollment as 274—42 secondary, the rest in elementary—taught by 12 teachers.  Coleman had a traditional college prep curriculum:  four years each of English, mathematics and bible study; three years each of Latin and history; two years of physics; and one year each of education, psychology, physiology.   Ms. Blow adds music and chemistry to that list.  Coleman trained teachers, using the elementary school for practice teaching.  

 

The Slater Fund report shows 323 students in 1919. Eighty-seven of these were high school students.  And though Negro Education states that college-level work did not begin until 1926, 11 students were listed as doing so in 1919.  By 1922 overall enrollment had dropped to 307—including four college students.  A major fire in 1926 and the death of Mr. Coleman in 1927 greatly hampered the school. The Slater Fund report shows only 153 students in 1929.  Negro Education gives an even lower number of 75—in adition to two college students and three theology students.