Seeking Grace: Black Alumnae at the University of Denver

The Black Methodist Church

The University of Denver, founded as “Colorado Seminary,” has a long association with the Methodist church. All of DU’s Black alumnae (1900-1945) were associated with either Scott United Methodist Church (founded 1904) or Shorter Community AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church (founded 1868), Denver’s two oldest Black Methodist churches.

The Methodist connection was great enough that Annie Cox, the only Black alumna during this period from outside the state of Colorado, traveled to DU all the way from Arkansas, where her father Rev. Dr. James Monroe Cox was the first Black president of Philander Smith College, a Methodist Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Little Rock.