A mong the rolling hills at the far western end of Delaware County lies a historic campus that is home to the nation’s oldest historically Black university, Cheyney University.
Founded in 1837 as the African Institute and shortly thereafter renamed the Institute for Colored Youth, the school boasts a list of notable alumni that includes physicist and educator Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American to earn a PhD from an American university, civil rights pioneer Octavius V. Catto, former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters, and journalist Ed Bradley.
The school recently offered guided tours of its historic campus to the general public as part of the America250 celebration. The tour was given by Leslie Bramlett, a re-enactor and historian who portrayed the role of Rebecca J. Cole, a Cheyney alumna who was the second African American woman in the U.S. to earn a medical degree…