A Conversation with Educational Trailblazer Adena Williams Loston
Growing up in the segregated South, Adena Williams Loston and her siblings would take messages for her father’s plumbing business. He was the first Black, self-employed plumber in her hometown and served predominately white clients, never turning down a job but also showing his kids that dignity mattered. “They would say, ‘Send that n r over here because that was his label,” remembers Loston, the president of St. Philip’s College who was named one of the 10 most dominant HBCU leaders of 2021. “We had to write it down and then he would charge people according to the way they talked to his children, always telling them they were getting a special price.” When people were polite and kind, he would sometimes finish the work for free, Loston says. If they called his kids names, they paid more. “He used the same words, ‘I have a special price for you,’ but they had different meaning,” she says. “I
Black History Month: President of St. Philip’s College follows legacy of female founder
Nation’s only HBCU and Minority serving institution
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SAN ANTONIO – Students don’t have to go far or even out of the city to attend a historically Black college. St. Philip’s College was created and expanded into what it is today thanks to local African American leaders, beginning with Miss Artemisia Bowden.
The school began in 1898 as a Saturday evening sewing school for six young Black girls. The bishop of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church wanted to create opportunities for the children of emancipated slaves. In 1902, he initiated Miss Bowden to turn it into a grammar school.