Henry “H.P.” Jacobs played a pivotal role in Ypsilanti’s Black history in the mid-1800s.
H.P. Jacobs forged freedom papers for him and his family to escape slavery in Alabama and fled to Canada in the 1850s.
James Egge is the Associate Dean for Programs at Eastern Michigan University. He says Jacobs later returned to Ypsilanti and worked as a janitor at the school’s predecessor, Michigan State Normal College.
“And then, from Canada, returned in the late 1850s, from Canada to Ypsilanti.”
Egge says while at Normal College, several of Jacobs’ children became the first African American students at the school. He also founded Ypsilanti’s Second Baptist Church, which still stands today.
After the Civil War, Jacobs moved to Mississippi, where he helped found Jackson State University and served as a state representative.
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