Morehouse Graduates Its Largest Class Ever

From the first day on campus, every one of them was told he was destined for greatness and could achieve no less.

They would become Morehouse Men.

Now, the Atlanta historically-black college is graduating 540, the largest graduating class in the history of the school whose alumni include Doctor Martin Luther King Junior and actor Samuel L. Jackson.

The school's mission of educating black men is flying in the face of troubling statistics about black males and post-secondary education.

The high sense of self-worth typical of Morehouse Men is often attributed to the legacy of its longest-serving president: Benjamin Elijah Mays, who died in 1984.

The son of sharecroppers from Ninety Six, South Carolina, he led the school from 1940 to 1967, transforming it from a humble college founded soon after the Civil War to prepare freed black men for the ministry and teaching.

Today, Morehouse stands as the largest private, liberal arts college for men, and one of only four all-male colleges in the country.