West Chester University selected senior Aiden N. Tilery as the first currently enrolled student to deliver its annual Dr. Clifford E. DeBaptiste Frederick Douglass Institute Lecture, connecting the program’s focus on education with a family legacy of public service.
The university’s Oct. 16 announcement scheduled the seventh annual lecture for Oct. 20 at Philips Autograph Library. Tilery’s topic was “Self-Empowerment through Education: Becoming 21st Century Students of the Scholar Frederick Douglass.”
Tilery is the great-grandson of Clifford DeBaptiste, West Chester’s first Black mayor, whose gift supports the lecture series. He is the son of Elizabeth DeBaptiste and nephew of Mayor Lillian DeBaptiste, according to WCU.
The business management major graduated from West Chester East High School. The university said he expected to graduate in May 2027 and then pursue funeral and mortuary science studies at Northampton Community College before joining the family’s funeral home business.
WCU’s Frederick Douglass Institute hosts the series to examine social justice through lessons from the past. The program also commemorates Douglass’s final public lecture on the university’s campus.
A family’s civic legacy
In a 2024 tribute in Congress, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan described Clifford DeBaptiste’s service in the Army, his education at West Chester and Lincoln universities, and the funeral homes he opened with his wife, Inez.
Houlahan credited his leadership with helping revitalize downtown West Chester, citing growth in the borough’s restaurant industry. Her remarks also recognized his 13 terms chairing the Pennsylvania State Board of Funeral Directors and his daughter Lillian’s continuation of the family’s public service.
