North Carolina A&T State University

Overview

North Carolina A&T State University is a public historically Black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Carolina, part of the University of North Carolina System, founded by the North Carolina General Assembly on March 9, 1891, as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race — the second college established under the Morrill Act of 1890 and the first for people of color in the state. It initially taught agriculture, English, horticulture, and mathematics; the state designated it a Regional University and renamed it North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1967. With more than 15,000 students, it has been the largest HBCU in the United States since 2014, and its College of Engineering graduates more Black engineers than any other American campus.

Founded to Comply — and to Segregate

North Carolina A&T’s founding traces to the Second Morrill Act of 1890, which required states to either admit African Americans to their land-grant colleges or establish a separate land-grant institution for them. To comply with the law while still barring Black students from the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now North Carolina State University), the state created a separate institution for African American students — the school that became North Carolina A&T.