In 1877, George Washington Henderson, a University of Vermont student and former Virginia slave, was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, now considered the oldest collegiate academic honor society in the country.
Just 12 years earlier, Henderson had been illiterate.
On Friday, Feb. 6, at 2:30 p.m., a portrait of Henderson, the first African-American anywhere in the nation to join Phi Beta Kappa, will be unveiled during a UVM Board of Trustees meeting. The event takes place in Waterman building's Memorial Lounge, where the portrait will continue to be displayed.
The ceremony is part of the 150th anniversary celebration of Phi Beta Kappa's UVM chapter.
"It's a really tremendous event not only because he will be the first person of color whose portrait is displayed in Memorial Lounge," said Annie Allen, UVM's executive officer for cultural pluralism and racial equality, "but by doing this, we also display some of the more progressive history of the University of Vermont. We get a lot of bad press about race relations, and I'm really pleased that while we recognize our faults, we can celebrate some of our victories."
The local Phi Beta Kappa chapter commissioned Dolores Sandoval, an associate professor of education, to paint Henderson.
The local chapter also initiated the first women in the nation to Phi Beta Kappa. Portraits of Lida Mason and Ellen Hamilton will be unveiled March 6 as part of Women's History Month.
Henderson was born in Clarke County, Va., on Nov. 16, 1850. It's not clear how he came to Vermont, although there are indications that he was brought north by an army officer from
Underhill after the Civil War. He studied with Oscar Atwood, principal of Underhill Academy for five years before enrolling at UVM.
After two years at UVM, Henderson himself became principal of Jericho Academy.
After working in Jericho, Henderson served as principal at Craftsbury Academy. Later, he earned a bachelor of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and continued his religious studies at Yale and at the University of Berlin.
He returned to Vermont to be the principal of the elementary school in Newport.
He went to New Orleans after that, where he was ordained a minister, and he served as a pastor and as chair of theology at Straight University (now part of Dillard University). Later, he was dean of theology at Fisk University in Nashville, and he taught Latin, Greek and ancient literature at Wilberforce University in Ohio.
Henderson died in 1936 at age 85 at Wilberforce.