Martin Henry Freeman

After receiving private tutelage from a local reverend, William Mitchell, Freeman attended Middlebury College, where he graduated as salutatorian in 1849.

[1] The following year, he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to take up a position as professor of science and mathematics at the Allegheny Institute (later Avery College), a new state-chartered college founded to educate free African Americans.

[citation needed] Dr. Russell Irvine of Georgia State University, author of The African American Quest for Institutions of Higher Education Before the Civil War: The Forgotten Histories of the Ashmun Institute, Liberia College, and Avery College (2010),[4] wrote the first biography of Martin Henry Freeman.

Titled Martin H. Freeman of Rutland: America's First Black College Professor and Pioneering Black Social Activist (1996), it was first published as an article in Volume XXVI, Number 3 of the Rutland Historical Society Quarterly and later appeared in Professor Irvine's book, The History of Black Higher and Professional Education.

The Anderson Freeman Resource Center at Middlebury College, a center that works to promote an inclusive and welcoming environment for the Middlebury community, especially for historically disadvantaged communities such as minority, first-generation college students, and LGBTQ people, is named in his honor.