As the new year dawned, another milestone was silently celebrated for the city of Selma – on New Year’s Day in 1878, Selma University was founded, only 15 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, the school was originally founded as the Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School with the purpose of “instructing black Baptist ministers and freedmen.”

In its first year, the school had a class of only four students.

Today, the school enrolls roughly 540 students each year and is the “major project” of the Alabama Missionary Baptist State Convention.

Alabama Colored Baptist State Convention (ACBSC) was founded in 1868 with the goal of “providing gospel order, development, correct doctrine and education for its pastors and the newly emancipated slaves.”

Leaders of the organization believed that the key to improving their churches and improving the social and economic status of black people was through education.

To that end, a former Talladega College student, William McAlpine, proposed that the ACBSC build a theological institute at the group’s convention in 1873.

The group’s convention was held in Tuscaloosa that year, side-by-side with a meeting of white Baptists – ACBSC reached out for advice from the white Baptists but were told that their idea was “impractical.”

Undeterred, the ACBSC moved forward with their plan.

The group cleared several logistical hurdles over the following years, including naming a president and board of trustees and raising funds for the new school, and decided on Selma as the location for the college over Marion and Montgomery.

The school opened in the St. Phillips Street Baptist Church.

In the same year it was opened, the school’s trustees purchased the “Old Fair Grounds” for $3,000, a tract than consisted of 36 acres of land, an amphitheater and other buildings – these buildings were renovated for $700 and became the classrooms and dormitories for the school.

In conjunction with religious training, students were offered studies in general education from the school’s elementary and high school programs.

The school first became known as Selma University in 1885 but was renamed the Alabama Baptist Colored University 10 years later.

It reverted back to Selma University some time later.

By 1900, only 22 years after its opening, Selma University had 382 students – 57 in ministerial studies and the rest in the normal-school program, which trained teachers for black schools – and had established the Alabama Women’s State Convention as a fund-raising auxiliary.

The school continued to grow and change over the following years and today has six satellite campuses in Mobile, Montgomery, Greenville, Eufaula and Evergreen and remains the “pride of Alabama Baptists.”