Horace Bumstead (1841-1919) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and died in Intervale, New Hampshire. He was a Congregationalist minister and educator and was one of the first white men in the United States to fight for educational rights for African Americans. He graduated from Yale University in 1863. A veteran of the American Civil War, Bumstead served as a major of the 43rd United States Colored Infantry from April 1864 to December 1865. He studied at Andover Theological Seminary in 1870 and then served as a pastor in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until 1875, when he became a professor of natural science and Latin at Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. He married Anna M. Hoit in Boston in 1872. Bumstead received a Doctor of Divinity degree from New York University in 1881. He served as acting president of Atlanta University from 1886 to 1887 and became the second president of the university from 1888 to 1907. It was during this time when he began his fight for equal rights for African American education. Named the "Apostle of Higher Education of the Negro" by W.E.B. DuBois, Bumstead advocated restructuring Atlanta University to include kindergarten, grade school, college prep, and college in order to better prepare its students. He was a member of the Loyal Legion, a patriotic order composed of commissioned officers of the United States Army, Navy, or Marine Corps who served during the Civil War and who "had aided in maintaining the honor, integrity, and supremacy of the national movement."

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