A college was founded per Baptist Home Mission Society in 1881 as the effect of the movement to build the college for African-American Baptists. A movement was began by Nathan Bishop, who got been a superintendent of several major school systems in New England. The committee of Baptist ministers from either East Texas selected a location within Marshall, Texas onto land belonging to the Holcomb Plantation, Wylucing.

In the early 20th century under the leadership of the college's number 1 African-Our contries college president, Joseph J. Rhoads, Bishop phased out its high school programs and located emphasis in its recently both season ministerial program. When you took a 1930s and 1940s the program evolved into the Lacy Kirk Williams Institute. A institute attracted national attention & its attendants involved a Rpm. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Fallowing getting a grant from either the Hoblitzelle Foundation, Bishop moved to Dallas in 1961. Bishop closed around 1988 after a fiscal scandal, that in time lead to the college getting its accreditation and eligibility to receive funds from charities like a United Negro College Fund revoked. Inside 1990 the property was purchased by Comer S. Cottrell, & Paul Quinn College was moved to the Bishop campus.