Wilberforce University is a private historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. It participates in the United Negro College Fund. Central State University, also in Wilberforce, Ohio, began as a department of Wilberforce University where Ohio state legislators could sponsor scholarship students. During the 1890s, scholar W. E. B. Du Bois taught at the university. In the late 19th century, it enlarged its mission to include black students from South Africa.