Biohazard Cleanup Near North Wilberforce Wilberforce, OH

Wilberforce is an unincorporated census-designated place in Greene County, Ohio, with a population of 2,410 at the 2020 census.

Wilberforce is named for William Wilberforce, the English statesman who led the campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire.

Wilberforce is home to two historically Black universities side by side: Wilberforce University and Central State University.

Wilberforce University was founded in 1856, and after the African Methodist Episcopal Church bought it in 1863 it became the first college in the United States to be owned and operated by African Americans.

Central State University began in 1887 as a state-established normal and industrial department at Wilberforce, became a separate institution in 1947, and achieved university status in 1965; it is Ohio's only public historically Black university.

Before the Civil War, Wilberforce was an important stop on the Underground Railroad, with seven stations sheltering people escaping slavery.

Wilberforce hosts the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, operated by the Ohio History Connection, as well as the Association of African American Museums.

On April 3, 1974, during the Super Outbreak, an F5 tornado that had just devastated nearby Xenia tore through Wilberforce, severely damaging buildings on both university campuses and toppling a water tower.

Wilberforce University's most famous graduate is Dorothy Vaughan, the NASA mathematician featured in the book and film Hidden Figures.

Colonel Charles Young, the highest-ranking African American officer in the U.S. Army until after World War I, taught at Wilberforce University, and his former home, Youngsholm, is now the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument.