Virginia State University is opening a new institute to prepare, cultivate and empower African-Americans for political leadership across the state.

VSU President Makola M. Abdullah announced the creation of the new John Mercer Institute for African-American Political Leadership on Wednesday.

An attorney, educator and diplomat, John Mercer Langston was the first president of the historically Black university in Ettrick that opened in 1882. He also was the first African-American to represent Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1890.

The purpose of the institute is to provide training, networking opportunities, research, programming and policy collection.

The launch announcement included the release of the institute’s inaugural poll of Black Virginia voters that highlights their needs.

Petersburg Delegate Lashrecse Aird and Hampton state Sen. Mamie Locke, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, were among the speakers participating in the announcement.

“As we look at the current political climate, it is imperative that clear avenues for Black political development are available,” Dr. Abdullah stated in an announcement release for the institute that will be part of VSU’s Department of Political Science.

Dr. Abdullah noted that VSU has long sought to equip people with the knowledge to play leadership roles and called the institute an “additional voice and pathway to make that happen.”

“This institute will help develop a pipeline for Black political leadership across the state to ensure that the voices of those who are often unheard will be represented,” said Dr. Wes Bellamy, chair of the department. “We hear loud and clear the need for change, for new voices.”

Dr. Bellamy said the institute would to seek to slake the “thirst for understanding political structures” and to assist in elevating “people eager to make a difference.”

The institute is scheduled to host its first training program in February, VSU officials stated.

Born a free Black man in 1829 in Louisa County, Mr. Langston was orphaned at age 4 and raised by a half-brother and guardian in Ohio. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1849 and a master’s in theology in 1852 from Oberlin College. After being denied admittance to several law schools because of his race, he studied the law under an abolitionist attorney in Ohio and was the first Black admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854.

Active in the abolitionist movement, Mr. Langston was appointed after the Civil War as inspector general for the Freedmen’s Bureau that assisted formerly enslaved people. In 1868, he established and served as the founding dean of Howard University’s Law School.

He was appointed as the U.S. minister to Haiti by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, and later returned to Virginia, where he was appointed as the first president of the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, the land grant institution founded in 1882 in Ettrick that later became Virginia State University.

After a contentious congressional election that ultimately was decided by a committee, Mr. Langston was seated in September 1890 as the first African-American in Congress representing Virginia.