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Martin University, Indiana’s only predominantly Black college, announced last December that it would close.
The school was founded by the late activist and Catholic priest Boniface Hardin, with a mission to serve students historically excluded from higher education.
WFYI’s Kyle Long brings us the story.
This transcript has been edited for style and clarity.
Boniface Hardin: What began as a dream or an idea is now becoming a reality.
Kyle Long: That was the voice of Boniface Hardin, founder of Martin University, Indiana's only predominantly Black college. Last December, Martin University announced it would close, citing years of financial strain and declining enrollment. The closure brings to an end, a legacy that began more than 50 years ago with Boniface Hardin.
He was born James Dwight Randolph Hardin on November 18, 1933, in Bardstown, Kentucky. He later took the name Boniface in honor of St. Boniface upon entering the Benedictine Order. He was among the first Black students at St. Meinrad Seminary in southern Indiana, where he became an ordained Benedictine monk and Catholic priest in 1959.
Hardin arrived in Indianapolis in 1965 after being assigned as associate pastor at Holy Angels Catholic Church. He entered a city marked by entrenched racial inequality, police violence, and urban displacement. It was in this context that Hardin emerged as a prominent civil rights advocate, speaking forcefully against discriminatory housing practices and police brutality.
Known for his deep wisdom, moral clarity, and gentle demeanor, Hardin was able to communicate across political and ideological lines, from members of the Indianapolis Black Panther Party to Republican Mayor Richard Lugar. His activism, however, placed him at odds with elements of the Catholic hierarchy in Indianapolis.
In 1969, tensions reached a breaking point. A front-page story in the Indianapolis Recorder alleged that members of the Indianapolis Police Department pressured the Archdiocese to remove Hardin from the city. The paper's headline read, “Father Hardin condemned for being militant.”
In the aftermath, Hardin turned his full attention to community organizing and education, laying the groundwork for Martin University.
Hardin: Because I see an alternative school, particularly in Indiana, as being a very viable thing, whether pre-primary three-year-olds on to postgraduate.
Long: In 1970, Hardin and Sister Jane Schilling founded the Martin Center in a house at 35th and College Avenue, naming it for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and St. Martin de Porres, the first Black saint of the Americas. The Martin Center launched the Indianapolis Sickle Cell Center, published the Afro-American Journal, and produced the long-running public radio program, The Afro-American in Indiana.
Hardin’s educational work led to the founding of Martin Center College in 1977, created to serve adult learners, low-income and minority students, people with disabilities, and others historically excluded from higher education.
Hardin: Poor, middle class, rich, educated, uneducated, from all walks of life.
Long: The Martin Center's impact on the culture of Indianapolis was strong. During a 1983 broadcast of Hardin's radio program, Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut praised the Center's work.
Bill Hudnut: I just want to express my appreciation to the two of you and your associates at the Martin Center. We have a city purchasing agent by the name of Norris Archer who graduated from the Martin Center. His graduation ceremony was held up in my office. But you're doing a lot to help people, and you're doing a lot to anchor that neighborhood and to promote its revitalization. You're a witness for important causes in this community that are positive, that want to help people to a better life, and I just want to say thank you before the programs end. I'm an unabashed and unashamed fan of the Martin Center.
Long: In 1987, the school moved to a larger facility in the Brightwood neighborhood, and in 1990 the institution was renamed Martin University. That same year, Martin graduated one of its most notable alumni, the Pulitzer Prize–nominated poet Etheridge Knight. At age 58 Knight earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and was later named the university's Poet Laureate.
Hardin himself published a volume of poetry titled, “Monkish Melodies,” and was quoted in Knight's signature poem, “We Free Singers Be.”
Martin reached a high point in 2001 with the opening of a new $10 million campus facility. Hardin retired as president of Martin University in 2007 after more than three decades of leadership. He died in 2012 at the age of 78.
From its beginnings as the Martin Center to its years as an accredited university, the institution reflected Boniface Hardin's belief that education could be built outside traditional structures and still endure. With Martin's closure, that vision seemingly comes to an end.
This segment originally aired on WFYI’s Cultural Manifesto.
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