Photo Credit: W.E.B. Du Bois/Library of Congress

African American baseball players from Morris Brown College, with boy and another man standing at door, Atlanta, Georgia in either 1899 or 1900.

Founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1881, Morris Brown College first opened its doors on October 15, 1885 to 107 students and nine teachers. Located at the corner of Boulevard and Houston Streets in Atlanta, Georgia the first building was described as “a crude wooden structure.” It was the first education institution in the state under sole African-American patronage. The photo above was taken only a few years after the college opened.

Morris Brown College