Biography:

Glasgow was the first graduate of the Institute for Colored Youth in 1856. After graduating from the Institute, Glasgow continued his studies abroad. He had been accepted into the prestigious University of Edinburgh in Scotland. On December 20, 1860, Glasgow was nearly finished his course of study at Edinburgh when he died of illness. When the news of his premature death reached Philadelphia, his friends, including the Institute for Colored Youth’s Board of Managers and the members of the Banneker Institute, issued statements of sorrow over the loss. writer to The Christian Recorder proudly commented that during a time when African Americans suffered from a position of inferiority in the United States, Jesse Glasgow was a young man “capable of making strides in learning that excited the envy of his white-skinned fellows.” His achievements at the Institute for Colored Youth and the University of Edinburgh embodied one of the primary principles of the Institute’s Quaker Board of Managers: that given the opportunity, African Americans could demonstrate intellectual equality with whites.