Continuing our series on National HBCU Week, today we spotlight Alabama State University, alma mater of Amsterdam News staff writer Cyril Josh Barker.
Alabama State University (ASU) was founded in 1867, in Marion, Ala., as a school for African-Americans. The school started as the Lincoln Normal School with $500 raised by nine freed slaves now known as the Marion Nine, making ASU one of the nation’s oldest institutions of higher education founded for black Americans.
Located in Montgomery, Ala. the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement, some of the most notable figures of the civil rights era – including the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, attorney Fred Gray and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth – are counted among ASU’s many distinguished alumni.
Alabama State University at a glance
President: Dr. Gwendolyn E. Boyd
Students: 12,150
Mascot: Hornets
Colors: black and old gold
Notable alumni: Ralph D. Abernathy, Dr. Fred Shuttlesworth, Rickey Smiley, Erskine Hawkins, Tavaris Jackson, Fred Wesley, Clarence Carter,
The university played a vital role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. English professor Jo Ann Robinson stayed up mimeographing 52,500 handbills on campus calling for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The result was a historic boycott that resulted in the desegregation of city buses.
The 172-acre campus has Georgian-style red-brick classroom buildings and architecturally contemporary structures. ASU is home to the 7,400-seat academic and sports facility the Dunn-Oliver Acadome, the Levi Watkins Learning Center; a five-story brick structure and, the state-of-the-art John L. Buskey Health Sciences Center.
In 2012, the university opened the New ASU Stadium on the campus. The 26,500-seat stadium holds a restaurant and retail space and is used used year-round with other events such as concerts, band competitions, as well as soccer matches and other sporting events.
ASU recently made history of its own by hiring their first female university president, Dr. Gwendolyn E. Boyd who is an ASU alumnus.
Today the school offers nearly 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, from our historic teacher education program to our new, high-demand programs in health sciences, new Ph.D. in microbiology and minor in international business. With beginnings as a teacher’s college, education remains the school’s top major and is a leading producer of Black teachers in the nation.
With a wealth of tradition on history, ASU is home to the nation’s oldest Black college football classic, the Turkey Day Classic which has taken place in November since 1924. The college also competes annually for the last 75 years in the Magic City Classic in Birmingham, Ala., the nations largest Black college football classic.
ASU was recently awarded a $350,000 grant from the Department of Energy for microbiology researchers. The school was also recently awarded a $285,000 grant that will help fund a collaborative prostate cancer research program with the University of North Texas Health Science Center.