March 16, 2021 . Volume 76 . Issue 6
The 141 Years at Southern University: Celebrating the Annual Founders’ Day Bianca Jones The Southern Digest
Here at Southern University, we celebrate the 141 years Southern University has been around. Usually, Founder’s Day would be celebrated in the F. G Clark Activity Center. However, due to COVD-19, the Southern University Administration has decided to host the 141st Founder’s Day through a livestreamed video on Tuesday, March 9. Southern University began in New Orleans in the year of 1880. Southern University was founded by Black community leaders like Governor P.B.S Pinchback, TT Allain, Erick J. Gilmore, and Henry Demas. Southern University of New Orleans opens doors for those who were less fortunate in higher education. The Morrill Act of 1890 allowed Southern to become a land grant institution launching the Agriculture and Mechanical Department. Southern University moved in 1914 to an all-black community of Scotlandville in North Baton Rouge. Dr. Charles Vincent, a History Professor at Southern University, talks about the twenty-six sites that were proposed for Southern such
The SU System Celebrates Its Students
SU System President-Chancellor, Ray L. Belton addresses the Jaguar Nation as part of the 2021 Founders’ Day Virtual Convocation on Wednesday, March 10. (Debrandin Brown/DIGEST)
as Grambling, Donaldsonville, Vidalia, New Iberia, and so on. He says that “There was a feeling that the New Orleans campus limited the access to blacks in the northern part of the state to a university.” The university closed on Juneteenth 1913 and reopened in the sixties. When the university opened, Dr. Joseph Clark became the first president. The enrollment grew from forty-seven to more than five hundred students. Once J.S Clark retired in 1938 his son, Dr. Felton G. Clark continued his
fathers’ work. Felton took over the campus from 1938 to 1969. Southern became a historically black college after having the largest enrollment nationwide. Racial segregation was the factor that led to the promotion of Southern University’s growth and development. Southern became authorized to open a law school in 1947 by the state of Louisiana. As said by Angela Allen-Bell, the SULC Law Professor, “We have produced graduates [in the Law Center] who have gone to change
the legal and social landscape of this nation.” The Litigation that started the Law Center was Thurgood Marshall, A. P. Tureaud, and Louis A. Berry, who became dean of the Law Center. In 1967, Southern University grew from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and on to Shreveport, Louisiana. Southern University has grown to be the biggest historically black college in the country. It has many locations and See FOUNDERS’page 3
Unsung Campus Heroes; SU Employee Recognition Program Dbbrandin Brown The Southern Digest
I’m [now] a double graduate myself,” said Erica Williams, a research associate at the Founder’s Week is meant Southern University Ag Center to be a time to show respect who is being recognized for and reverence to the university twenty years of service. founders who have made all For many tenured members the strides that members of of the Southern University the Jaguar Nation have made community, there has been a possible, through both their noted shared background of perseverance and dedication to having Jaguars somewhere in giving black students academia their family tree, whether this a safe space to matriculate and is parents or other extended grow. It is towards this same families. purpose that on Founder’s Week, “My hopes would be for the university paid respects to Southern University to those who have helped to keep continue educating people the university aflo0at amid the who otherwise wouldn’t have pandemic, including faculty, staff, the opportunity to receive an and administration throughout education,” said Ronnie Foster, campus. assistant registrar at Southern Throughout the video that University about what he hopes was put together in their honor, to see continuously continued many members of the university by Southern, regardless of how staff spoke about their bond to much time goes by. Foster is the university, as well as their being recognized for over forty appreciation for the recognition years of service to the Southern given to them. “I’m a Southern University campus. baby. I’m a product of two The video honoring the many Southern University graduates that made it known that ‘your See HEROES page 3 tuition will be paid at Southern’;
(Top) - SUAg research associate, Erica Wiliiams, recognized for 20 years or service. (bottom) - Assistant Registrar, Ronnie Foster, was recognized for cover 40 years of service.
Te’yanah Owens The Southern Digest
On March 10, the Student Government Association held a virtual Pretty Wednesday inside the Union’s Ballroom via Instagram Live. The event was thrown in honor of Southern University’s 141st Founder’s Day. Things looked a lot different compared to a normal Pretty Wednesday. The only people that were able to turn up in person for the event were the 90th Miss Southern University, Kennedie Batiste, and the 77th Student Government Association President, Chandler Vidrine. DJ Neff was also there mixing up a playlist. Miss Southern, along with the SGA president showed attendees how campus life used to be pre-COVID by demonstrating the SU Shuffle for the Instagram Live audience. The purpose of the event was to talk about the history of Southern. Southern University became the first state-funded institution of higher learning for Black people in Louisiana in 1880. It is still the flagship of the Southern University System, the only system of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the nation. The Southern University System was created in 1974 by constitutional mandate, which fashioned it into the nation’s only historically black 1890 Land-Grant University System. Presently, the System includes five institutions. Those being Southern University and Agricultural and See PRETTY WEDS page 3
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY AND A&M COLLEGE, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA