Morris Brown College Photographs

Morris Brown College, a private, liberal arts institution located in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 1881 by the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church for the "moral, spiritual and intellectual growth of Negro boys and girls."The original site for the school was located at Boulevard and Houston Street in Northeast Atlanta. On October 5, 1885, under the charter granted by the State of Georgia, Morris Brown College opened with nine teachers and 107 students.

To prepare students for ministerial careers in the A.M.E. Church, Morris Brown opened a theology department in 1894, which became the Turner Theological Seminary in 1900. The seminary's name honors Henry McNeal Turner, a pioneering A.M.E Church organizer. Turner Seminary remained affiliated with Morris Brown until 1957, when it joined the Interdenominational Theological Center. Turner obtained an independent charter in 1975.

The school operated until 1894 on the primary, secondary, and normal school levels, while the College department was established in 1894 and graduated its first class in 1898. By 1908 the school boasted an enrollment of nearly 1,000 students. It continued to offer instruction in industrial trades as well as academic fields and awarded two-year degrees in addition to four-year bachelor's degrees, but over time administrators placed greater emphasis on the development of the school's college-level curriculum.

Morris Brown expanded its curriculum over the early 20th century. By the late 1950s, Morris Brown students were performing at high academic levels and in 1959, undergraduate Edwina Woodard Hill received the school’s first Rhodes Scholarship. Morris Brown students and alumni were also active in the Civil Rights Movement and the Atlanta Student Movement.

Morris Brown College joined the Atlanta University Center in 1941, and along with Atlanta University, Clark College, Spelman College, and Morehouse College formed the largest consortium of HBCUs in the country. They remained members of the AUC until 2002.