The Swift Story

The Swift Story explores the history of the late-HBCU Swift Memorial Institute, once located in Rogersville, Tennessee. In 1883, the first African-American graduate of Tennessee’s Maryville College, Rev. William H. Franklin, established an institution of higher learning for newly emancipated Blacks in the region. Swift Memorial Institute in Rogersville, Tennessee became a beacon of higher education in the Mountain South for African Americans, demonstrating, not only the power of education but the importance of doing what’s right, regardless current ideas.