Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Miller Dickey and his wife Sarah Emlen Cresson opened the school named Ashmun Institute in Hinsonville, Pennsylvania during the winter of 1854. The founders established the institution to provide higher education options for African Americans who had few other choices at that time.
Brenda A. Allen became the new president of Lincoln University in 2017 after Robert R. Jennings resigned from the presidency in November 2014. She graduated from Lincoln University in 1981 before assuming her leadership role.
MacKenzie Scott donated $20 million to the university in 2020 which represented the second largest single donation in the school's history. Another $25 million arrived in December 2025 making it the largest single gift ever received by the institution.
Thurgood Marshall graduated from Lincoln University in 1930 and later became the first African American appointed as justice to the US Supreme Court. James Mercer Langston Hughes received his degree in 1929 and bequeathed his personal library to the university upon death in 1967.
Women have received degrees since 1953 when the charter was amended to allow their enrollment. They made up 66% of undergraduate enrollment in 2019 at the historically black university located in Lower Oxford Township, Pennsylvania.