Daniel Alexander Payne was the first African American to attend a Lutheran seminary. Born to free African Americans in Charleston, SC in 1811, Payne wished to provide education to the enslaved. Slave codes enacted following slave revolts made it illegal to teach slaves, so Payne moved north to Pennsylvania. In 1835, Payne accepted a scholarship specifically intended for an African American student at the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Gettysburg, where he produced influential antislavery treatises. Though he did not finish his seminary program, the Frankean Synod ordained him as a Lutheran minister in 1839. From there, he join the more activist AME Church. Payne went on to become a bishop in the AME Church, and also the first African American president of a university, serving as president of Wilberforce University in Ohio from 1863 to 1876.
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