North Carolina Central University
Durham, Durham County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
North Carolina Central University. Founded 1910 by James E. Shepard for Negroes. State liberal arts college, 1925-1969. Now a regional university.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
In 1910, at the height of the Jim Crow era, educator James E. Shepard founded this Durham institution to give Black North Carolinians access to higher learning that segregation otherwise denied them. It became a state-supported liberal arts college in 1925 — one of the first publicly funded liberal arts colleges for African Americans in the nation — before growing into today's regional university.
Why it matters
NCCU stands as a monument to the determination of Black educators to build lasting institutions of opportunity within, and against, a segregated South.
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Related people
- · James E. Shepard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rose Butler Browne (1897–1986)
Durham, NC
Rose Butler Browne was an educator and civil rights activist who devoted her life to opening the doors of learning. From 1948 to 1963 she chaired the Education Department at the North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham, shaping generations of Black teachers. Her scholarship and advocacy joined the classroom to the broader fight for equality.
James E. Shepard
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James E. Shepard was a leading Black educational and religious figure in early-twentieth-century North Carolina. In 1910 he founded the Durham college that became North Carolina Central University, guiding it as president until 1947 through the hardest decades of segregated education.
Peace College
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Edward A. Johnson
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Edward A. Johnson was a many-sided figure in turn-of-the-century Black America, working as a politician, businessman, philanthropist, author, and educator. He became the first Black author to publish a schoolbook in North Carolina, writing Black history into the classroom. His home stood on this site.