African American Higher Education- Shorter College

Little Rock and North Little Rock are home to three of the oldest seats of higher education in Arkansas. North Little Rock’s Shorter College, an African Methodist Episcopalian affiliated institution, was founded in 1886 by clergyman James P. Howard. It was originally known as Bethel University, since it initially met in the basement of Bethel AME Church in Little Rock at Ninth and Broadway. In 1894, the school was chartered as Shorter University, re-named after Bishop James Alexander Shorter who had organized the AME Church in Arkansas. A year later it moved to its present location in North Little Rock at Sixth and Locust Streets. In 1903, it finally became Shorter College. In 1942, it merged with fellow AME Flipper-Key-Davis College based in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1955, it became Arkansas’ only African American two-year college. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.