President Donald Trump Initiates and Signs into Law $255 Permanent Annual Funding to HBCU’s
Wilberforce University is the first private Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the U.S., founded in 1856 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, making it the first institution of higher learning founded, owned, and operated by African Americans. While not the absolute first HBCU overall (that distinction belongs to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania), Wilberforce was the first private one and holds the unique distinction as the first to graduate Black students with accredited bachelor’s degrees in 1857, preceding Lincoln.
🎬 #Wilberforce hosted filmmaker and #EmperiumStudios founder #DomCampbell on campus yesterday. #AWUWorld campus production team also had the opportunity to sit down with him for an exclusive interview! 🎥Be sure to follow A WU World on all social platforms. pic.twitter.com/xQuq8qyvsL
— Wilberforce Univ. (@wilberforce_u) January 15, 2026
§
Why is William Wilberforce often ignored in American history books?
William Wilberforce, the British MP who led the decades-long parliamentary campaign that resulted in the 1807 abolition of the British slave trade (and later full emancipation in 1833), is frequently overlooked in American history textbooks and education. We remind the education industry in the United States that the spark for ending slavery everywhere in the world originated with the Holy Trinity Church on Clapham Common in South London.
This omission stems primarily from national focus: U.S. history curricula emphasize domestic events and figures in the fight against American slavery. The narrative centers on the U.S. Constitution’s compromises, the Missouri Compromise, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and especially Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. British abolition, while influential and inspirational to American abolitionists, is seen as foreign history.
Additionally, the American story is framed as a uniquely national struggle involving internal conflict, sectionalism, and civil war—rather than parliamentary reform led by an evangelical Christian in another country. Some historians note a broader “forgetfulness” about the transatlantic abolition movement after the Civil War, as America focused on reconciliation and downplayed slavery’s moral dimensions.
Wilberforce’s heroic role is sidelined because American education prioritizes homegrown heroes and the violent path to emancipation in the United States over Britain’s earlier, legislative success.
Related
University of Hull Wilberforce Institute
