Tuskegee University

Lewis Adams, a former slave, tinsmith and community leader, asked W. F. Foster, a candidate for the state senate, for an educational institution in exchange for securing Black voter support. Arthur L. Brooks helped pass House Bill 165, which established a “Negro Normal School in Tuskegee” and appropriated $2,000 for teachers’ salaries. Adams, Thomas Dryer and M. B. Swanson formed the first board of commissioners; George W. Campbell later replaced Dryer, and his nephew contacted Hampton Institute to find a teacher.⁠[1]

Adams and George Campbell hired Booker T. Washington to lead the school. It opened on July 4, 1881, as the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, with a first class of 30 adults meeting in a one-room shanty near Butler Chapel AME Zion Church.⁠[2][3][1]

Booker T. Washington bought an abandoned 100-acre plantation on the outskirts of Tuskegee with money borrowed from the treasurer of Hampton Institute; it became the nucleus of the present campus. Students made bricks in a kiln they built and sold them to raise money, and within a few years helped construct a classroom building, a dining hall, a girls’ dormitory and a chapel.⁠[4][1]

In 1892, through legislation, the school gained independence from the State of Alabama as the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute.⁠[1]

The institution became private while retaining its land-grant status. In 1893 the state raised its annual appropriation to $3,000, and the Slater Fund contributed $1,000.⁠[3]

In 1896 George Washington Carver, a botanist and former professor of agriculture at Iowa State College, joined the faculty to head the agriculture department. In 1906 Carver and Washington started the Movable School to reach farmers who could not attend Tuskegee; Carver designed the Jesup Wagon, which carried equipment for training farmers at their homes.⁠[2]

Booker T. Washington died on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59. During his leadership the student body grew from his first class of 30 to 1,537.⁠[4][2]

Washington is buried on campus near the University Chapel, and the Booker T. Washington Monument, “Lifting the Veil,” was dedicated in 1922.⁠[1]

Robert R. Moton succeeded him as the second president, serving from 1915 to 1935.⁠[1]

In 1923 the Tuskegee V.A. Hospital, built on land donated by the institute, opened.⁠[1]

In 1932 the U.S. Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It enrolled 600 Black men, 399 with syphilis and 201 without; they were not asked for informed consent and were informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term for several ailments, receiving free checkups, meals and burial insurance in return.⁠[5]

By 1943 penicillin was the treatment of choice for syphilis and was becoming widely available, but the participants were not offered it. In 1972 an Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is a cooperative news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it is the oldest and largest news agency in the United States.Open the full entry story brought the study to public attention; an advisory panel appointed by the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs found it “ethically unjustified,” advised stopping it in October, and its end was announced a month later.⁠[5]

In March 1973 the panel recommended that the Public Health Service provide medical care to survivors, and the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program was created; a class-action lawsuit filed that year ended in a $10 million out-of-court settlement in 1974. On May 16, 1997, President Bill ClintonBill ClintonBill Clinton (born 1946) is an American politician and lawyer, a Democrat who served as attorney general and governor of Arkansas and as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001.Open the full entry issued a formal apology for the study.⁠[5]

In 1997, in the aftermath of the study, the university established the National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care.⁠[3]

Frederick D. Patterson became the third president in 1935 and served until 1953; he founded the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Luther H. Foster succeeded him in 1953.⁠[3]

In November 1940 the War Department created a program to train Black pilots at Tuskegee; its graduates became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.⁠[3]

In 1941 the Army Air Corps awarded the school a contract to operate a primary flight school at Moton Field. The military chose it as a civilian contractor because of its existing facilities, engineering and technical instructors, year-round flying weather and its interest in aviation training for Black youth. Designed and built by its students and faculty and named for the second president, Robert Russa Moton, Moton Field was the Army Air Corps’ only primary flight training facility for Black pilot candidates during World War II; the institute was one of very few American institutions, and the only Black one, to own, develop and control facilities for military flight instruction.⁠[6]

Almost 1,000 aviators were trained there, and more than 10,000 Black military and civilian men and women served in support roles. The National Park Service credits their success with helping pave the way for desegregation of the military, beginning with Executive Order 9981 in 1948.⁠[6]

The university cites Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960) and the student Sammy Younge as part of its involvement in the civil rights movement.⁠[1]

In 1966 the student activist Samuel Younge Jr. was killed, and the same year Tuskegee was designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1974 it became the only Black college designated a National Historic Site.⁠[3]

Benjamin F. Payton became the fifth president in 1981. In 1985 the institution attained university status as Tuskegee University.⁠[3][1]

In 1998 the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site was established under Public Law 105-355.⁠[3][6]

Gilbert L. Rochon served as president from November 1, 2010; Brian L. Johnson from June 15, 2014, to June 30, 2017; Lily D. McNair, the first woman to hold the office, from July 1, 2018; and Charlotte P. Morris from August 1, 2021, after earlier serving as interim president in 2010 and in 2017–2018.⁠[1][3]

Mark A. Brown became the university’s 10th president and CEO on July 1, 2024, the first alumnus to hold the post. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Tuskegee in 1986 and was commissioned that year through its Air Force ROTC program, retiring as a major general after 32 years of service; his posts included deputy commander of Air Education and Training Command and chief financial officer of Air Force Materiel Command. He later served as chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid and as president and CEO of the Student Freedom Initiative.⁠[7]

His investiture ceremony was held on September 19, 2025, at the General Daniel “Chappie” James Center on campus.⁠[8]

As of November 2026 Mark A. Brown is the university’s president and CEO. The university has more than 3,000 students, and its main campus, farm and forest land cover some 5,000 acres with more than 70 buildings.⁠[7][1]

The university offers more than 60 academic programs and states that it is the only HBCU with ROTC programs for every branch of the military, including the Space Force.⁠[9]

Tuskegee University: Official website: https://www.tuskegee.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/tuskegeeuniversity (opens in a new window).⁠[1]