William Andrew White
Born in Virginia in 1874 to two former slaves, William White was the second Black graduate of Acadia. During his years at Acadia, he played sports and was a valuable member of the intercollegiate rugby team and of various class teams. His team mates on Acadia’s rugby-football team showed the true meaning of sportsmanship in October 1902 when confronted by a team from Truro, Nova Scotia that refused to play Acadia if White remained on the team. The Truro players did not want to play a “coloured” man. Although White offered to step aside so his teammates would be able to play a much-anticipated game, they refused to do so, arguing that he was a member of the team.
During the annual interclass field day in 1901, White helped his team to the title, placing first in the shot put and third in both the 100 yard dash and the hammer throw. The graduation number of the Athenaeum remarked in June 1903 that White “distinguished himself as an all-around track and field athlete, was a pretty good football player, a good speaker, and a good fellow generally. He was also prominent in the YMCA and stood well in his class.”
After graduation in 1903, White was ordained a minister in the Baptist church and using his excellent speaking skills, spent two years working for the Home Mission Board founding churches for the African Baptist Churches of Nova Scotia. After serving churches in New Glasgow and Truro, he enlisted in the Canadian Army in WWI as a chaplain and was the only Black officer in the British Army. After the war he was called to the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church in Halifax. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Acadia in 1936, shortly before his death.
