A Place Called Oakwood

Key Places

Graysville, Tennessee: This small country town was where George A. Colcord opened a Seventh-day Adventist school in 1891. Then a boarding academy with an adjacent sanitarium, Graysville Academy would move to property east of Chattanooga and become Southern Junior College, then Southern Missionary College, and finally Southern Adventist University. This area was a crucial spot in the early days of the movement in the training of Adventist workers. It is centrally located, roughly one hundred miles from both Nashville and Huntsville. PCO iii.1

Huntsville, Alabama: The home of the Oakwood educational institution, the first Seventh-day Adventist higher education institution for African Americans. Huntsville, Alabama, is a city that has historically been noted for being progressive in its racial views and, more recently, for its technological advancement. It was/is an ideal location for the Oakwood educational enterprise. Huntsville, situated in the northern part of Alabama, is the southern part of the Nashville-Huntsville-Graysville triangle. PCO iii.2

Madison, Tennessee: Located ten miles northeast of Nashville, Madison was an important spot in early Southern Seventh-day Adventism. The Madison property (often referred to as the Madison Farm) was purchased in 1904 with the financial assistance of Nellie Druillard and the prophetic vision of Ellen White. Spearheaded by Edward A. Sutherland and Percy T. Magan, the Madison contingent would spawn a collection of schools, hospitals, industries and churches around the South. PCO iii.3

Nashville, Tennessee: The capital of Tennessee, Nashville was the hub of the burgeoning Southern work in the Seventh-day Adventist movement. Home of the first black congregation, at Edgefield Junction, Nashville would also later become home to two SDA conferences (Gulf States Conference and South Central Conference) and the first SDA hospital for blacks (Riverside Sanitarium). A major factor in the location of schools at Huntsville and Graysville was their proximity to Nashville. PCO iii.4