UAPB Founder Joseph Carter Corbin Paved the Way for African American Higher Education in Arkansas

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), currently celebrating its year-long sesquicentennial, along with the local community, will celebrate “Professor Joseph Carter Corbin Day” on Wednesday, September 27, 2023. Seating for the event is limited, and individuals are highly encouraged to join via livestream at www.youtube.com/uapbtelevision. Corbin’s awe-inspiring legacy of service, advocacy, and excellence continues to this day, as the founder of Branch Normal College, now UAPB, and the “Father of Higher Education” for African Americans in Arkansas.

“Professor Joseph Carter Corbin, our university’s beloved founder, was a veritable ‘Renaissance Man’ with a classical education, whose larger-than-life presence and benevolent audacity to establish Branch Normal College during the Reconstruction era, can still be felt today,” said UAPB Chancellor Laurence B. Alexander. “It is felt through the transformative accomplishments of all our alumni past and present since 1873, along with our esteemed faculty, who have continued to embody the spirit, leadership, determination, and passion that so aptly describes Professor Corbin. The UAPB community is humbled by Professor Corbin’s achievements and his monumental contributions to higher learning for African Americans, both in Arkansas and the country.”

Professor Corbin (March 26, 1833 – January 9, 1911) was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, a town heavily steeped in racist segregation. The eldest son of former slaves William and Susan Corbin, Corbin’s parents enrolled him in private schools due to the absence of public schools for African Americans in Chillicothe, where he excelled academically. In 1850, he enrolled in The Ohio University in Athens, and holds the honorable distinction of being the third African American student to enroll there. He became the second African American to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree at the university, and then went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in 1856.

Post-graduation, Professor Corbin embarked on a public service career, serving as an elected trustee of the Cincinnati Colored School Board for two terms, and made impactful contributions as the co-publisher and editor of the Colored Citizen newspaper of Cincinnati for six years, where he vigorously advocated for the education of enslaved and free African Americans as a means for advancing equal opportunities and much-needed societal change. Professor Corbin married Mary Jane Ward, with whom he fathered six children. Two of his children were surviving at the time of his death in 1911.

In 1872, Professor Corbin relocated to Arkansas, working as a journalist for the Arkansas Daily Republican and was appointed secretary of the 1872 Republican state convention. He was also elected as the Superintendent of Public Instruction and President of The Board of Trustees of the Arkansas Industrial University (AIU,) utilizing both positions to further advance the educating of African American students. On April 25, 1873, State Senator John Middleton Clayton sponsored a legislative act establishing a college to educate African American students, who would later become teachers in the state’s African American schools. This historic legislation opened the door to Professor Corbin’s establishment of Branch Normal College in Pine Bluff that same year. The Arkansas Industrial University Board of Trustees elected Professor Corbin as Principal of Branch Normal College in July 1875. Branch Normal College’s inaugural class consisted of seven students, but enrollment increased significantly, and by the end of the year, 75 to 80 students were enrolled.

Professor Corbin’s indelible contributions to the educational and societal advancement of African Americans, and continuous positions of leadership within any organization he was involved in, didn’t cease with the establishment of Branch Normal College. He chose to remain within Pine Bluff and served as principal of Merrill High School, and as President of the Colored Teachers Association from 1902 to 1903. In addition, Professor Corbin was also an accomplished Freemason and served as Grand Master within the Negro Grand Lodge of Arkansas and overseeing that temple’s construction in Pine Bluff in 1903.

When Professor Corbin passed on January 9, 1911, due to heart failure, he left an astounding and undisputed legacy of being one of the foremost and courageous advocates for African American advancement in all facets of American life, beginning with education, which UAPB continues to honor to this day.