Chester County

Chester County Historical Society
225 N. High Street, West Chester
(610) 692-4800

Commemorating the lives of former Chester County residents, including acclaimed writer Langston Hughes, an alumnus of Lincoln University, the Historical Society's past programs have included oral history workshops celebrating the integral art form of African and African American culture; an exhibition centered around the Mason-Dixon Line featuring paintings of Harriet Tubman and Thomas Garrett; and a display honoring Bayard Rustin, a native of West Chester and architect of the Civil Rights Movement, who is credited with organizing the 1963 March on Washington. At Horticultural Hall, various groups met throughout the 1800s, including the End-Slavery Society.

Chester County Visitors Center
300 Greenwood Road, Kennett Square, PA 19348
(800) 228-9933 or (610) 388-2900

This vistor's center, located in the former Longwood Progressive Friends Meeting House, contains an interpretive exhibit of photographs, biographies, maps, and context narratives describing the county's extensive role in the Underground Railroad.

Lincoln University
1570 Baltimore Pike, Lincoln University
(610) 932-8300

Langston Hughes, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the first presidents of Nigeria and Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Kwame Nkrumah, earned their degrees at Lincoln University. Founded in 1854 and later named for President Lincoln, the university in its first 100 years graduated approximately 20 percent of the black physicians and more than 10 percent of the black attorneys in the nation.

Delaware County

Cheyney University
Cheyney & Creek Roads, Cheyney, PA
(610) 399-2275

The oldest of the country's historically black colleges and universities, Cheyney was founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth, per the will of Quaker silversmith Richard Humphreys. By the turn of the century, the school relocated from 9th and Bainbridge Streets in South Philadelphia to George Cheyney's farm in Delaware County. Whatever the name, Humphreys' intent had always been to establish a school for boys of African descent, after personally witnessing their plight while growing up on a plantation in the West Indies. Once a free high school that trained future teachers, Cheyney now confers undergraduate degrees in 30 disciplines and counts the late journalist Ed Bradley among its alumni.

Kennett Square Underground Railroad Center
(610) 347-2237

Temporarily relocated to Chadds Ford in the Brandywine Valley, the Kennett Square Underground Railroad Center has documented more than two dozen "stations" within an eight-mile radius of Kennett Square in Chester County, quite possibly making the cluster the largest of its kind in the country. The center features artifacts, photographs, and interpretive dress to convey the daily life of fugitive slaves along the "trackless trail" to visitors.

Back to Top