Bennett College is a private historically black liberal arts college for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was founded in 1873 as a normal school to educate freedmen and train both men and women as teachers. Originally coed, in 1926 it became a four-year women's college. It is one of two historically black colleges that enroll only women, the other being Spelman College. In 1956, Willa Beatrice Player was installed at Bennett College, becoming the first African-American woman president of an accredited, four-year liberal arts college. She encouraged her students to be activists in the issues of the day. Beginning in 1960, Bennett students took part in the ultimately successful campaign in Greensboro to integrate white lunch counters at local variety stores. The college expanded its academic offerings and classes related to women's leadership. In December 2018, the college's regional accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, announced that it intended to revoke Bennett College's accreditation. The college had been on probation for two years due to its considerable financial challenges. The college launched an emergency funding campaign, Change and Progress for Bennett, to raise at least $5 million. By February 2019, the campaign raised $8.2 million. That same month, SACS withdrew accreditation from the college despite fundraising efforts; however, Bennett College filed a lawsuit against the accreditor and the court ordered the accreditation to remain in place pending the legal challenge. On June 27, 2019, Bennett announced that Suzanne Walsh, would be its new president. Walsh was previously deputy director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Postsecondary Success division. History Bennett College was founded August 1, 1873 as a normal school for teacher training. It opened with seventy African-American men and women (freedmen, or former slaves). The school's founder, Albion W. Tourgee, was an activist, Civil War veteran and jurist from Ohio who worked in North Carolina during Reconstruction and championed the cause of racial justice. The school held its inaugural classes in the basement of Warnersville Methodist Episcopal Church North (now St. Matthew's United Methodist) in Greensboro. Bennett was coeducational and offered both high school and college-level courses, in an effort to help many blacks compensate for their previous lack of educational opportunity. The year after its founding, the school became sponsored by the Freedman's Aid Society and Southern Education Society of the northern Methodist Episcopal Church (like the Baptists, the Methodist