March 9, 2021
One hundred thirty years ago today, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the Colored Race was established as the first land-grant university created in North Carolina under the Morrill Act of 1890. Today, we know that illustrious institution as North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, America’s largest and top-ranked historically black university, the alma mater of Aggie Nation.
In honor of this auspicious occasion, the F.D. Bluford Library and the offices of Alumni Relations and University Relations have partnered in the creation of 130 Years of A&T, a website designed to tell some of the most prominent stories of the people and events that have been part of this special place these last 13 decades. Among the many stories you can read in this fascinating digital space:
- The life of an international opera/gospel star who graduated from A&T in 1941, performing in venues and at events ranging from the Metropolitan Opera of New York to the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, keeping company with such luminaries as Cab Calloway, Jackie Robinson, Duke Ellington and Ed Sullivan.
- The career of a baseball phenom who became one of only three women to play professional in the Negro Leagues alongside such stars as Satchel Paige. After her brief but successful career, she earned her nursing degree at A&T and became a lifelong healthcare professional.
- A collection of images of A&T in its early days that were displayed in 1900 at the World’s Fair in Paris. The images were collected by the famed historian/educator W.E.B. DuBois, who curated the exhibit.
- A video of a legendary A&T faculty member accepting the NAACP’s highest annual award, the Spingarn Medal, four years before he became the first black person ever featured on the cover of TIME Magazine in a 1935 issue.
We encourage you to visit and enjoy the site, both for stories that may be familiar to you and, we hope, for stories you’ve not heard before. Please feel free to share it with friends, family, fellow Aggies and, maybe most importantly, students and teachers interested in a more holistic understanding of history, some of which has been represented infrequently or not at all in traditional education settings.
We are proud to lead the way toward more complete portrayal of North Carolina’s and the United States’ past and a more thoughtful way forward to a stronger future. For 130 years, A&T has stood for academic excellence, service to community and inclusion. This new website is yet another demonstration of the energy, thought and care that we devote to that mission.
Why? Because that’s what Aggies DO!