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Contribution #248 of 365
Joseph Charles Price
Founder and First President of Livingstone College
1881–1893
The contribution
How this work helped shape America
Born in North Carolina in 1854 to a free Black mother and an enslaved father, Joseph Charles Price used education, public speaking and fundraising to build a lasting Black college. During an 1881 speaking tour in Europe, he raised nearly $10,000 to support the school that became Livingstone College. As its first president, Price guided the institution's growth from a small school into an important liberal-arts college for Black students, strengthening Black-led higher education and institution building during the Reconstruction era.