Tuskegee alumna, Voorhees College founder inducted into South Carolina Hall of Fame

April 16, 2020

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Brittney Dabney, Communications, Public Relations and Marketing
 

Elizabeth Evelyn Wright Menafee, a 1894 alumna who would go on to found Voorhees College, was inducted posthumously into the South Carolina Hall of Fame earlier this spring. She is credited as the first African-American woman to establish an institution of higher learning — and one that remains in operation today.

Menafee was the seventh of 21 children — the daughter of John Wesley Wright and his wife Virginia Rolfe. She enrolled in then-Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute at 16. After receiving her degree in 1894, Menafee took the teaching of Booker T. Washington’s industrial and agricultural model and applied it to helping educate African-American men and women in the area of Hampton County, South Carolina.

After several attempts to establish a school in the area failed due to arson attacks, Menafee concentrated her efforts in the Denmark, South Carolina, community. With significant funding from churches and community members, Menafee successfully established the Denmark Industrial School in 1897. Now known as Voorhees College, the school’s name was changed in 1902 to honor philanthropists Ralph and Elizabeth Voorhees of New Jersey, who played a major role in the school’s 280-acre expansion.

Menafee received a successful nomination into the South Carolina Hall of Fame because of her efforts to establish the institution and her willingness to provide opportunities for self-advancement through education. The college’s current president, Dr. W. Franklin Evans, was present to accept the award, along with two of Wright’s descendants: Jewel Barrett and her daughter Jewel Delegall.

Today, Voorhees College operates as a four-year, co-educational, career-oriented liberal arts college affiliated with the Episcopal Church and UNCF. The private, historically black college touts an enrollment of around 600 students and is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's degrees.

The South Carolina Hall of Fame recognizes and honors both contemporary and past citizens who have made outstanding contributions to South Carolina's heritage and progress. Each year, the Hall of Fame honors two contemporary and one deceased inductees. Also inducted in the 2020 class were multi-Platinum recording artist Darius Rucker; and artist, educator and museum director Dr. Leo Twiggs.

For more information about the South Carolina Hall of Fame, visit .

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