Inauguration of Patrick Healy

Date: July 31, 1874 • Location: Rosslyn, United States

Patrick Francis Healy was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, becoming the first African-American president of a predominantly white university in the United States.

Patrick Francis Healy was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who was an influential president of Georgetown University, becoming known as its "second founder". The university's flagship building, Healy Hall, bears his name. Though he considered himself and was widely accepted as White, Healy was posthumously recognized as the first Black American to earn a PhD, as well as the first to enter the Jesuit order and to become the president of a predominantly White university.