02/14/2021
🔎Did you know Nashville has the second most Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for a city in the nation? As we continue to celebrate Black History this month, we wanted to celebrate the four historically Black institutions of higher learning in our city who continue to develop diverse student bodies of world changers.
Fisk University is the oldest of these four schools starting in 1865 just after the end of the Civil War, literally in the former Union army barracks in the city. Founded with the help of a Christian missions org called the American Missionary Association (AMA), teachers were recruited from the north to begin to educate newly freed Blacks. It was A.P. Miller—an early student and eventual missionary to West Africa—who first spoke what would become a key motto of this young Christian institution remarking, “Her sons and daughters are ever on the altar” speaking to its desire to develop Christ-centered, sacrificial servants for the world.
Meharry Medical College began in 1876 as the medical department for the now defunct Central Tennessee College. It was started by a generous donation from Samuel Meharry who as a youth had been aided on a rainy night by a freed Black family who risked their freedom to help him after his salt wagon got stuck in mud. He never forgot this memory and vowed to eventually help the Black race when he was able. Thanks to a donation from him and his four brothers, a new medical department began in the basement of a Methodist church and quickly became a premier institution for Blacks studying medicine and dentistry. It would boast of being the first medical school in the South to offer 4 year training and it also graduated the first Black physician in the South. Today it maintains its Methodist affiliation.
In 1912, the “Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal School for Negroes” was founded as a public land-grant institution. It formally became Tennessee State University in 1968 and now operates on 500 acres boasting an enrollment that makes it one of the largest HBCUs in the nation. Their award winning Tigerbelles track team boasts 17 Olympic gold medals and its marching band Aristocrats of Bands has performed on multiple continents, venues, and presidential inaugurations.
American Baptist College started in 1924 as a cooperative effort between the predominantly White denomination the Southern Baptist Convention and the predominantly Black denomination the National Baptist Convention. It’s faculty and students—including the late Rev CT Vivian and the late congressman John Lewis—would play a key role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s through participation in the downtown Nashville Sit-Ins.
Drop a ❤️ if you are inspired or a 💪if you are a Nashville HBCU alum!