page_title: Southern University
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Southern University / History
caption_attribution_description: U. S. President William McKinley's reception at Southern University, New Orleans, 2 May 1901.
context_page_description: Southern University and A&M College is a public historically black university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is the largest HBCU in Louisiana, a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the flagship institution of the Southern University System. Its campus encompasses 512 acres, with an agricultural experimental station on an additional 372-acre site, five miles north of the main campus on Scott's Bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in the northern section of Baton Rouge.
  Southern University's 13 intercollegiate athletics teams are known as the Jaguars, and are members of the Southwestern Athletic Conference in NCAA Division I. The Human Jukebox is a well known collegiate marching band that has been representing the university since 1947.
context_section_description: At the 1879 Louisiana State Constitutional Convention, African-American political leaders P.B.S. Pinchback, Theophile T. Allain and Henry Demas proposed founding a higher education institution "for the education of persons of color." Louisiana before the American Civil War had an established class of free people of color, who were often property owners and educated; they kept that tradition for their children.
  In 1880, the Louisiana General Assembly chartered what was then called Southern University for Colored Students, originally located in New Orleans. Southern opened its doors on March 7, 1881 with 12 students. The school was held for a time at the former Israel Sinai Temple on Calliope Street, between St. Charles and Camp streets.
  In 1890, the legislature designated Southern as a land grant college for blacks, in order to continue to satisfy federal requirements under the land grant program to support higher education for all students in the state, despite having a segregated system. It established an Agricultural and Mechanical department.
  The 1904 "Picayune Guide to New Orleans" described the University, then on the 5100 block of Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans,  as "for the education of colored persons. Coeducation is in force here. The school is excellent and the instruction of an advanced character." 
  Because of continued growth and a lack of land for expansion, in 1914 the university moved to Scotlandville, along Scott's Bluff facing the Mississippi River and north of Baton Rouge. Now absorbed into the capital, this area is included as a historic destination of the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
  The first president of what is now known as Southern University at Baton Rouge was Dr. Joseph Samuel Clark. Clark, an African-American leader from Baton Rouge. He had led Baton Rouge College and the Louisiana Colored Teachers Association.
  In 1921, the Louisiana Constitutional Convention authorized the reorganization and expansion of Southern University; Legislative Act 100 of 1922 provided that the institution be reorganized under the control of the State Board of Education. Clark presided over Southern University during its resulting expansion. Student enrollment grew from 47 to 500, and two of the school's early buildings were built during this time.
  The Southern University Laboratory School System began operating in September 1922. The Laboratory School was first accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1936 and has conferred more than 5,000 high school diplomas since its inception. Clark presided until his retirement in 1938.
  Clark's son Dr. Felton Grandison Clark was appointed as president that year. He had been serving as a dean at Southern since 1934. The State School for the Negro Deaf and Blind was established here in 1938, under supervision of Southern University. In 1943, the university was visited by the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. F. G. Clark generated much more expansion of the university: 33 of 114 current buildings were erected during his 30 years of tenure. The student enrollment grew from 500 to nearly 10,000 students by the end of his tenure.
  Under segregated state education, LSU Law School had refused to admit Charles J. Hatfield, III, an African American college graduate who filed a lawsuit in 1946 to gain professional education in the state. A special Louisiana Convention established a law program in 1947 at Southern University; it is now known as the Southern University Law Center. F. G. Clark expanded affiliated centers for Southern University, founding Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) (1956) and Southern University at Shreveport (SUSLA) (1964). They were officially incorporated by the legislature into the Southern University System in 1974.
  In 1969, Clark retired and Dr. G. Leon Netterville was selected as president. On November 16, 1972, in a second day of protests as students argued to be included in determining administration policies and decisions, Denver Smith and Leonard Brown were shot during a protest outside the Old Auditorium (now
caption: President William McKinley speaks at Southern University in New Orleans, 1901.
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