Brenham Normal and Industrial College

Brenham’s African American and Anglo community leaders first discussed the Brenham Normal and Industrial College (BNIC) in a public meeting in March 1905, when Daniel Porter (1863-1916) came to the area seeking land and a building to create a school for African Americans. The college was legally established on April 17, 1906, when it purchased acreage for their campus.

Alonzo (A.L.) Sledge, a former slave, served as the President of the Board of Directors from 1906-1916. Sledge was elected as a State Representative, from Washington County, to the Texas Legislature in November 1878 and served from January 14, 1879, until January 11, 1881. The college’s inaugural class began in 1905 with ten students.

By 1913, 130 students were enrolled. Classes from elementary to high school were offered as well as Normal School education, where the students could earn a certification to become schoolteachers. Additional classes included shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping, commercial law, business arithmetic, correspondence, agriculture, horticulture, mechanics, and girls’ industrial education department with sewing, housekeeping, cooking, laundering, food preparation, physiology and personal hygiene, piano, organ, and vocal music.

The Brenham Normal and Industrial College discontinued its educational operations in 1927; however, the Theological Department continued to give certifications in pastoral leadership, ushers, deacons, religious ethics, Sunday school superintendents and teachers and evangelizing. The college is an important reminder of African American educational efforts in the early 20th century.

(2015)