Berea, KY Summary

Thirty miles south of Lexington, just off I-75 in the foothills where Bluegrass Country meets Appalachia, the unique Berea College gives its 1500 mainly local students free tuition in return for work in any of 120 crafts, ranging from needlework to wrought ironwork. Founded in 1855 by abolitionists as a vocational college for the young people of East Kentucky – both white and black – it was forcefully shut down four years later by mobs opposed to the board’s support for John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry.