Who first founded Liberty University in Virginia? If you answered 20th century Pan-African Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, you're correct! In 1926 the United Negro Improvement Association led by Garvey acquired the Smallwood-Corey Industrial Institute on 66 acres on the St. James River in Claremont, Virginia. The UNIA renamed this institution Liberty University, in some records Universal Liberty University. Garvey's wife Amy Jacques Garvey described Liberty University in her memoirs as "a practical High School;" historian Mary Drew adds that "the Parent Body of the UNIA intended to develop it into a university." "Advertisements for the university appeared in the [UNIA newspaper] Negro World, informing readers that the school had opened for the fall term on September 15 and that 'every division or chapter should grant a scholarship to a deserving boy or girl and enable them to secure a liberal education.'" But "The school experienced great financial difficulties and, after struggling through three years of poverty, was closed in October 1929," the introduction to The Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers reports. Liberty Halls were community meeting places operated by local UNIA chapters. The name also alludes to Liberia; Garvey had a complex relationship with Liberia. Garvey was in prison in Atlanta at this time. But he was a prospective adult education student himself thanks to distance learning. From prison in 1927 Garvey "contacted representatives of the Columbia University Home Study Department for information about their mail-order courses in philosophy and poetry." Garvey and the UNIA had and would launch or support other schools and education programs. The UNIA announced plans to launch Booker T. Washington University in New York City in 1922. Garvey launched the School of African Philosophy in Toronto in 1937, having been deported from the US. @chrisjm18 can be proud of this history of Liberty University!
What is the connection between the two? Liberty University was founded as Liberty Baptist College in 1971. Claremont, VA is 142 miles from Lynchburg, VA.
No connection. Just a coincidental use of a very common word. Liberty University was originally Lynchburg Baptist College.
The last sentence is throwing me off because Liberty University's history is not Universal Liberty University's history. Marcus Garvey was a Pan-Africanist, and Jerry Falwell was an anti-Black racist. The only thing those two would have agreed on was segregation of the races.
They're completely separate histories! Garvey and Falwell might have agreed on a select few points about Christianity and social conservatism, and several more about economic conservatism.