Lincoln University, Pennsylvania (Lower Oxford Township, Chester County) · Founded 1854 · Lions (Luther the Lincoln Lion)
“The nation's first degree-granting HBCU — Learn. Liberate. Lead.”
The Orange Crush's first-ever Honda Battle of the Bands appearance — the nine-year-old program performing at the Georgia Dome before 63,000+ fans on January 30, 2016, its national coming-out moment.
Alternate angle of the same milestone: Lincoln's Orange Crush on the Honda stage in Atlanta, January 2016, alongside seven other HBCU bands.
The band's official 2026 rollout introducing the TNT drumline — members, sections, majors — and naming Dr. Adolph Wright as band director with Tyree Miller as director of percussion.
Fresh 2026 footage of the Orange Crush battling Delaware State, Hampton and Virginia State at HBCU Week — the modern band in full battle mode.
The Krush Groove Dance Team, led by Captain De'Yonna Jackson, performing to the Orange Crush playing 'Vice Versa' during the 2020 basketball season — the band's dance line in its element.
The Orange Crush plays Janet Jackson's 'Velvet Rope' in the 5th quarter of the 2011 Wade Wilson Classic vs. Cheyney — Battle of the Firsts rivalry footage.
Official-channel short introducing the TNT drumline — the percussion section behind the Orange Crush's sound.
Orange Crush pep-rally performance at the Chicago Football Classic, facing off with Mississippi Valley State's band on a national stage.
The band's own channel captures the Orange Crush halftime show at a Lincoln homecoming — the band's signature Saturday moment.
Full 2015 halftime show — the Roland Green-era Orange Crush in vintage form a year before the Honda breakthrough.
Early Orange Crush halftime footage from 2010, just three years after the band was founded with 13 members.
Orange Crush halftime show going head-to-head with Bowie State's Symphony of Soul in CIAA competition.
First African American recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded 1865 for Civil War valor.
Harlem Renaissance poet; bequeathed his personal library to Lincoln on his death in 1967, seeding the Langston Hughes Memorial Library.
First African American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; directed the NAACP Legal Defense Fund before the bench.
First president of Nigeria; the campus's Azikiwe-Nkrumah Hall (1865) is named for him and Nkrumah.
First president of Ghana; with Azikiwe, made Lincoln the alma mater of two West African founding presidents.
Educator and one of the most significant African American modernist poets.
First African American to earn both an M.D. (Harvard, 1929) and a Ph.D. (Columbia, 1932); internationally recognized authority on tropical diseases.
Star of the undefeated 1924 CIAA championship football team; 80-yard kickoff return against Howard; Lincoln Hall of Fame 2018.
Founder of Crossroads Africa, the volunteer program that served as the model for the Peace Corps.
Widely acclaimed actor of stage and screen.
One of the most influential scholars and philosophers of the Black Arts Movement.
First African American female rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
First African American woman elected Assembly Speaker in New Jersey and first African American woman elected Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey.
Administrative judge of the trial division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
Former chief of the New York City Police Department.
Actor, director and three-time NAACP award-winning playwright.
First female prime minister of Namibia.
Legendary soul and jazz poet, musician and author; attended Lincoln in the late 1960s.
14th president of Lincoln University — the alumna who came back to lead it.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted a charter on April 29, 1854 for Ashmun Institute, named for Jehudi Ashmun, the religious leader and social reformer tied to the American Colonization Society. The founders were Rev. John Miller Dickey, a Presbyterian minister who had preached to enslaved people in Georgia, and his wife Sarah Emlen Cresson, a Quaker heir to a Philadelphia philanthropy tradition. The Presbytery of New Castle had approved Dickey's plan the previous October: an institution for the 'scientific, classical and theological education of colored youth of the male sex.' Horace Mann Bond, class of 1923 and later the school's first Black president, would call it 'the first institution found anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent.'
Dickey's first students included James Ralston Amos, his brother Thomas Henry Amos, and Armistead Hutchinson Miller — young Black men Dickey had personally tutored after failing to get even the most liberal colleges to admit them. Dickey encouraged all three to support the establishment of Liberia as a colony for African Americans, and each became an ordained minister. The Amos brothers' names would later be carved into campus history when Amos Hall was named for them. Their path from rejected applicants to ministers captures exactly what the school was built to do.
A year after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Ashmun Institute was renamed Lincoln University in the martyred president's honor. Dickey used the moment to push the school beyond a seminary-style institute, proposing a full university open to students of 'every clime and complexion,' with planned schools of law, medicine, pedagogy and theology alongside the liberal arts college. The first baccalaureate class of 1868 graduated six men — two of them white, a deliberate statement that the school welcomed all races from the start. In those early decades the campus earned the nickname 'the Black Princeton': a Princeton-educated founder, a rigorous classical curriculum, Presbyterian roots, and colors and mascot that mirrored Princeton's — orange and black with a tiger there, orange and blue with a lion at Lincoln.
Football arrived in 1894 and immediately made history: Lincoln's first intercollegiate game was a 6-4 win over Howard University in Washington, D.C. That single game planted the seed of what would become one of Black college football's great rivalries. Athletics, the university would later note, has been 'an integral part of the Lincoln experience' from that day forward. The program was founded just as the school was hitting its stride as the destination for talented Black students shut out of Southern white institutions.
President William Howard Taft traveled to Chester County to deliver Lincoln's commencement address, a measure of how prominent the small Black college had become in national life. Sitting presidents did not make a habit of visiting Black campuses in 1910. The invitation reflected Lincoln's standing as the oldest degree-granting HBCU and its pipeline of graduates into medicine, law, the ministry and education across the country.
Lincoln was an original member of the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the league now known as the CIAA, when it formed in 1912. The Lions would compete in the conference until 1980, then return in 2008 when football was revived — a 96-year arc of membership that ties the modern program directly to the league's founding. Few schools in America can claim founding membership in a conference still playing today.
Just days after the Tulsa race massacre, President Warren G. Harding came to Lincoln to deliver the commencement address, speaking about the need for healing and harmony and honoring the Lincoln alumni among the 367,000 African-American servicemen of World War I. On the same visit Harding dedicated the Alumni Memorial Arch at the campus entrance to the Lincoln men who served in the war. The school newspaper called the visit 'the high water mark in the history of the institution.' The arch still stands as one of the most visible landmarks on campus.
Under coach Ulysses 'Lyss' Young, the 1924 Lions outscored their opponents 206 to 3 and won the school's CIAA football championship. Star Franz 'Jazz' Byrd, class of 1925, turned in some of the most spectacular performances of his career in the Lincoln-Howard games, including an 80-yard kickoff return in 1924. Byrd entered the Lincoln Hall of Fame in 2018, nearly a century after his playing days. The 1924 season remains the gold standard every Lincoln team is measured against.
By the 1920s the annual Lincoln-Howard football game had grown into a Thanksgiving Day tradition called 'The Classic,' drawing crowds that included the elite of Black America and stars of the Harlem Renaissance. It was part football game, part social event, part homecoming for an entire generation of Black achievement. The rivalry began with that 6-4 Lincoln win in 1894 and, through the 1920s and early 1930s, was one of the premier spectacles in Black college life.
The Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes graduated in 1929; a year later, Thurgood Marshall graduated in 1930 and went on to become the first African American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between 1854 and 1954, Lincoln graduates accounted for roughly 20 percent of African American physicians and more than 10 percent of African American attorneys in the United States. No other school of its size shaped the Black professional class the way Lincoln did in its first century.
Kwame Nkrumah, class of 1939, left Chester County to become the first president of Ghana; Nnamdi Azikiwe, class of 1930, became the first president of Nigeria. Lincoln's African alumni pipeline made the small Pennsylvania campus an unlikely incubator for post-colonial African leadership. Later graduates include the first Black dean of the University of Pretoria after apartheid and the first female prime minister of Namibia. The school's motto — Learn. Liberate. Lead. — reads like a description of what actually happened.
Horace Mann Bond, class of 1923 and the scholar who had so eloquently defined Lincoln's founding distinction in his book Education for Freedom, became the university's first African-American president. He served twelve years, and his tenure brought two extraordinary visitors to campus. Bond also formed a close friendship with art collector Albert C. Barnes, a relationship that gave Lincoln the privilege of naming four of the five directors of the Barnes Foundation's governing board — a remarkable link between a small HBCU and one of the world's great art collections.
In 1946, despite the prevailing racial dynamics of the era, Albert Einstein visited Lincoln to lecture on physics — and to speak plainly about racism. The visit was a sensation: the most famous scientist alive choosing a small Black college as his platform. The episode was dramatized in the 2017 television series Genius, introducing a new generation to the day Einstein came to Chester County. It remains one of the most storied single days in the university's history.
Marking its centennial, Lincoln amended its charter to permit granting degrees to women — nearly a century after its founding as a school for 'male youth of African descent.' True coeducation arrived slowly: women were still only 5 percent of the student body in 1964. Today women are the clear majority, making up 60 percent of undergraduates in Fall 2025. The arc from exclusion to majority-female took more than a century.
After decades without a football team, Lincoln revived the program in 2008 and rejoined the CIAA, the conference it had helped found in 1912. The return gave the Orange Crush marching band, founded just a year earlier, its football Saturdays. The modern Lions play in the LU Athletics Stadium and compete in NCAA Division II across 12 varsity teams. The revival reconnected the school to the gridiron glory of the 1924 champions.
Lincoln and Cheyney — Pennsylvania's only two HBCUs, thirty minutes apart — renewed their football rivalry in Philadelphia in 2009, with 3,500 fans at Northeast High School watching Lincoln win the Wade Wilson Classic 41-20. The rivalry, dubbed the Battle of the Firsts, turned on a delicious historical argument: Cheyney was founded in 1837 but didn't grant college degrees until 1914, while Lincoln, founded 1854, was the first to grant them. The schools met again in Philly in 2010 and kept the series alive until Cheyney dropped football after the 2017 season.
The Orange Crush reached the national stage on January 30, performing at the Honda Battle of the Bands in the Georgia Dome before more than 63,000 fans. Honda selected eight HBCU bands through fan voting and feedback from band directors, presidents and company representatives, awarding each a $20,000 grant. Band director Roland Green told press the invitation was the young program's chance 'to let people know that we're doing good things in the music world here up north.' It was the first Honda appearance for the band founded just nine years earlier.
Brenda A. Allen, class of 1981, became Lincoln's 14th president — an alumna returning to lead her alma mater. A year later she launched the strategic plan 'Reimagining the Legacy: Learn. Liberate. Lead.' Her tenure has brought the largest philanthropic gifts in school history and a wave of campus renewal. The appointment closed a circle: the student of 1981 now stewards the institution that made her.
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $20 million to Lincoln, the second-largest single gift in the university's history at the time. The unrestricted gift arrived as HBCUs nationwide were receiving historic levels of philanthropic attention. For a school that had once paid off a $15 million debt under Ivory Nelson, the $20 million signaled how far the finances had come.
The entire 422-acre main campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, formal recognition of its significance as the nation's first degree-granting HBCU. The listing covers 56 buildings and more than a million square feet, from 19th-century halls like Azikiwe-Nkrumah (1865) to the modern science center. Few active college campuses carry the designation.
During homecoming weekend, a shooting on campus killed one person and injured six others; police believed there were multiple shooters, and one man was arrested and charged with bail set at $1 million. The violence struck at the heart of the school's most beloved tradition. The university and community were left grieving during what should have been a celebration.
MacKenzie Scott donated another $25 million — the largest single gift in Lincoln's history, surpassing her own $20 million from 2020. The back-to-back mega-gifts, totaling $45 million from one donor, transformed the university's financial footing. Coming just weeks after the homecoming shooting, the gift also read as a vote of confidence in the school's future.
Pennsylvania's only two HBCUs, about thirty minutes apart, have argued for generations about who is really 'first': Cheyney was founded in 1837 but didn't grant college degrees until 1914, while Lincoln (1854) was the first to grant them. The football rivalry was renewed in Philadelphia in 2009 — 3,500 fans at Northeast High School watched Lincoln win the Wade Wilson Classic 41-20 — and the schools met again in the city in 2010. Lincoln's 30-18 win in the 2014 Battle of the Firsts aired on television, with Akeem Jordan catching three touchdowns. Cheyney dropped football after the 2017 season (the finale: Cheyney 56, Lincoln 28 on September 2, 2017), pausing the gridiron chapter; the rivalry also plays out in basketball.
Lincoln's very first football game was a 6-4 win over Howard in Washington, D.C. in 1894, and by the 1920s the annual meeting had become a Thanksgiving Day tradition called 'The Classic.' During the 1920s and early 1930s the game drew crowds including the elite of Black America and stars of the Harlem Renaissance — part football, part social event. Franz 'Jazz' Byrd's most spectacular performances came in these games, including his 80-yard kickoff return in 1924. The schools revived the non-conference matchup in the modern era.
Lincoln's oldest football series among current CIAA schools, dating to 1905. The 2020 schedule notes had the all-time series dead even at 11 wins apiece with one tie — more than a century of football with nothing settled. Shaw, the first HBCU in the South, and Lincoln, the first degree-granting HBCU in the nation, is a matchup of founders.
Lincoln's second-oldest series among current CIAA schools, dating to 1916; the 2020 meeting was the 47th between the schools. In October 2026 the rivalry gets its biggest stage yet: Lincoln vs. Virginia Union at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia as part of One Philly HBCU Week — Lincoln's first football game in the city since the 2010 Battle of the Firsts. The 2025 meeting went to the Panthers 66-21.
🥁 "Orange Crush" Roaring Lions Marching Band · since 2007
The Orange Crush was born in August 2007 when Prof. H. Wade Johnson arrived to build a premier collegiate band program from scratch, starting with 13 members who only played basketball games and campus events. By its second year the band had expanded to football as the revived Lions took the field in 2008, and it has since become one of the most visible programs on campus, marching in parades and stadiums across Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida. The January 2016 Honda Battle of the Bands invitation at the Georgia Dome put the youngest program in the field on the national stage. The drumline goes by TNT, and the auxiliaries are the Krush Groove Dance Team and the Blue Mist Flag Corps, alongside a concert band, pep band, jazz band and the LUX combo.
Founded the Orange Crush in August 2007 with just 13 members; built the program from a basketball pep outfit into a full marching band within two years. The university's band handbook names him as Director of Bands with Andrea Holley as assistant director.
Directed the band when the Orange Crush made its national breakthrough at the Honda Battle of the Bands in January 2016, performing at the Georgia Dome before more than 63,000 fans. Told press the young program was there to prove northern HBCU bands belonged on the national stage.
Current band director as of 2026, named in the band's official 2026 drumline rollout alongside Director of Percussion Tyree Miller. Leads the Orange Crush into its third decade.
Greek life is a visible, driving part of campus culture — the university's own site calls it 'robust' — and the chapters anchor homecoming, step shows and service. Lincoln runs an annual Fraternity, Sorority and Social Fellowship Giving Challenge that pits Divine Nine alumni, the honorary band fraternity and sorority, and the social fellowships against each other in fundraising for the Lincoln Fund; in 2018 President Allen challenged 800 givers at $100 a month, a $960,000 goal. The chapters pass traditions down through generations and, in the university's words, give students a 'home away from home.'
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Coed apartment-style suites housing 400 students, the newest and largest residential option on campus at the time, giving upperclassmen an alternative to the historic small dorms.
The $40.5 million, four-story, 150,000-square-foot science and technology building housing biology, chemistry, physics, math and computer science, with more than 20 teaching labs. Later named for 12th president Ivory V. Nelson, whose tenure raised the $325 million that made it possible.
The 60,000-square-foot, $26 million International Cultural Center with an 1,100-seat performing arts auditorium, conference rooms, language lab and art gallery to house the university's own art collection. Funded by alumni, private donors and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
A 105,000-square-foot facility bringing modern fitness, recreation and wellness space to the residential campus.
The main dining hall and 370-bed upperclass residence got an expanded dining commons, with seating growing from 300 to nearly 475 plus new bakery, deli and exhibition-cooking stations.
Roughly $17.5 million renovation turning Dickey Hall into a state-of-the-art academic center for business and entrepreneurial studies, psychology and human services, sociology and criminal justice, history, political science and philosophy, plus information technology and a mock courtroom for legal training.
Sensitive renovation of the 1865 building, one of the oldest on campus, to house offices for Institutional Advancement with a small conference room addition.
$15 million renovation and expansion of the 1902 building, originally constructed as a bath house and later a gym, snack bar, dorm and IT hub. The project added classrooms and studio space for visual arts plus museum and gallery space for the university's African Art and Material Culture collection.
The completely renovated Student Union Building now holds the bookstore, cafe, two television studios, a radio studio, postal services and multipurpose rooms, and anchors campus social life alongside the Thurgood Marshall Living Learning Center.
The entire main campus, 422 acres with 56 buildings and more than a million gross square feet, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing its significance as the nation's first degree-granting HBCU.
The football program was revived in 2008 after decades dormant and rejoined the CIAA it helped found in 1912; the Lions compete in NCAA Division II with 12 varsity teams (football at LU Athletics Stadium, basketball at Manuel Rivero Gymnasium). The Orange Crush marching band, founded 2007, is directed by Dr. Adolph Wright with Tyree Miller as director of percussion.
14th president; Lincoln class of 1981; launched the 2018 'Reimagining the Legacy' strategic plan.
Chief academic officer of the 1,527-student university.
Director of athletics; led the 125th-anniversary celebration of Lincoln athletics in 2019 and the 2020 football schedule announcement for the program's 13th season since its 2008 revival.
Lincoln's own site describes a small, tight-knit campus 'energized by a vibrant social life, a robust Greek culture, and a one-of-a-kind Homecoming celebration' — set amid the rolling farmland of southern Chester County, 45 miles from Philadelphia. With 95 percent of main-campus undergraduates living in college housing, the social world is the Quad: parties, concerts, step shows, talent competitions and guest speakers, plus The Lair recreation center (video games, billiards, ping-pong) and even Pride Cuts, the on-campus barbershop. Students run the Royal Court ambassadors, the Campus Activities Board, the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge team, WWLU campus radio, LUC-TV, The Lincolnian newspaper and The Lion yearbook. Homecoming is the emotional center of the year — and in October 2025 it was shattered by a shooting that killed one and injured six, a wound the community is still carrying.