Unveiling of Joseph Carter Corbin Ohio Historical Marker-Gladys Turner Finney Comments

June 28, 2017
Ohio University Branch Chillicothe

Mayor Feeny
Dr. Tuck
Representatives of the Ohio History Commission
Faculty
Other Distinguished Members of the Dias
Friends

How very, very happy and excited I am to share this historic moment with you.

First I'd like to thank Dr. Roderick McDavis for his magnanimous support in helping this vision become a reality.-a commemorative historical marker for Professor Joseph Carter Corbin, a native son of Chillicothe, a distinguished 19th century graduate of Ohio University at Athens.

It was July 13, 2013 when a member of College Hill Community Church (PCUSA) drove me to Athens for an audience with Dr. McDavis to share my vision for enhancing Professor's Corbin's image and legacy.

I'd like to thank Dr. Tuck and Mayor Feeny for their support and the planners for this wonderful ceremony and inviting me. I'd also like to thank all those known and unknown during the transition following Dr. McDavis who helped us over the finish line.

I'd like to take a few minutes to share with you why Joseph Carter Corbin was extraordinaire.

Joseph Carter Corbin was truly extraordinaire.  This prophet of education had the audacity of courage to establish Branch Normal College for the education of former slaves and their descendants as a Branch of the Arkansas Industrial College which we all now know as the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. This was  during the Reconstruction Era in Arkansas, following the Civil War.

I am an heir to this legacy. I am an heir to Professor Corbin's legacy of education. I am the descendant of great great grand parents who were slaves. I graduated from J.C. Corbin High School in May 1953, the last graduating class and the salutatorian of that class. At this time J.C. Corbin Training School and J. C. Corbin High School were Laboratory Schools of AM&N College, located on the college campus. I graduated from AM&N College, then known as Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College in May 1957. This is my 60th year of graduation.

I share Professor Corbin's legacy of education with countless others, like me, who would not have had the opportunity for a college education were it not for him and this HBCU.

Professor Corbin was truly extraordinaire.
When Professor Corbin opened Branch Normal College in Pine Bluff in 1875
he had no college eligible students. His original 7 students ranged in age from 9 to 15. They were elementary students.

At the end of the Civil War only 5 African-Americans had attended school in Arkansas.
In 1866, there were only 5 African-American teachers in the state.

 The first 7 years of Branch Normal College, Professor Corbin served as the principal, the only teacher, and the janitor.

Professor Corbin produced the first bachelor degree graduate in 1882.

This prophet of education is the Father of Higher Education for African-Americans in Arkansas.

Professor Corbin's unselfish devotion to the education of others remains and is immortal and magnifies his birthplace, his native state, his Alma Mater.

In the spirit of Professor Corbin and Ohio University-- let us all teach someone, help them to achieve their potential and make the world a better place.