52. Oakwood College Founded On Prayer

Anna KnightPPP 248.1

I had been in Chattanooga when Elders O. A. Olsen and G. A. Irwin spent the night with Brother [L. Dyo] Chambers on their way to Huntsville, Alabama, looking for a suitable place to locate a training school for the colored people.—Anna Knight, Mississippi Girl, p. 211.PPP 248.2

I had heard that Sister White had said there ought to be a school located in the country near Nashville, Tennessee, or in northern Alabama, since the racial feelings where not so bad there as in other places in the South. A committee had been to Nashville and some other places but could not find any location that appealed to them. They were on their way to northern Alabama to see what they could find. Early the next morning before starting they gathered in the living room for prayer. It was the custom of Brother and Sister Chambers to pray three times a day, morning, noon, and night. I was deeply impressed by the earnestness of the prayers of these men as they asked the Lord to help them find the place He had in mind for a colored school. They were so earnest that they shed tears over it. After prayer they went to the railway station, took the train to Huntsville, and were directed out to a farm which was for sale. They said after they entered the grounds that they had a feeling that this was the place the Lord had in mind for the school.PPP 248.3

After careful investigation, they put down a deposit to hold the farm until they could report their findings to Battle Creek, Michigan.PPP 249.1

I was at Battle Creek attending the Industrial Preparatory School when a special offering was planned for the colored work to raise a fund to help buy that farm on which the General Conference wished to establish a school. Everyone was asked to give a dollar. Many did not have the dollar to give, and they sacrificed a meal a day, thereby saving the money for an offering on the following Sabbath to help the colored work.PPP 249.2

In due time the money was raised and the purchase was made.—Anna Knight, Mississippi Girl, pp. 208, 209.PPP 249.3