Vida L. Avery is the Resource Development Manager of the Texas Center for Grants Development at Harris County Department of Education in Houston, Texas, USA.

"The story of black higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the leaders that envisioned it and the philanthropists that supported it is a complex one that needs to be told. Thank you, Vida L. Avery, for telling it so well!" Beverly Daniel Tatum, President, Spelman College, USA

• 1. Historical Backdrop 2. Mythical Phoenix and the Ashes It Spreads 3. John Hope: Hallmark of the Truest Greatness 4. Layers of Complexity 5. Creating the Atlanta University System 6. Germinating a Black Intelligentsia 7. Conclusion Appendix 1: Other Strategic Locations for Cooperation Appendix 2: Letter: John Hope to Edwin Embree (Hope's Six-Year Plan) Appendix 3: Notable Atlanta University System/Center Alumnus(ae)