State Conference

Until recently, I had no idea that Founder Morse worked in Portsmouth, Virginia before going further south. As a related point of interest, this document puts Founder Morse in the same city as Bro. T.H. Reid (1st Eastern Regional “Director” or VP) after he finished his JD (HU ‘17) and started practicing at his father’s, Atty. W.M. Reid, well-established firm. The Corey Memorial Institute was founded by area Baptists in 1906. After some financial difficulty, it merged with another private school for African Americans in the area – the Smallwood Industrial Institute. Marcus Garvey’s UNIA purchased the Smallwood-Corey school’s 66 acres and several buildings for $5,000 and the assumption of it’s $55,000 debt in 1925. Renamed Liberty University, the operation was eventually closed in 1929. The last class to graduate from the Corey Memorial Institute in Portsmouth was 1918. Maybe that’s why Morse relocated to Alabama?  Read More →