Jackson State University

Overview

Jackson State University is a public historically Black research university in Jackson, Mississippi, developed from Natchez Seminary, founded October 23, 1877, in Natchez, Mississippi, and affiliated with the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York for “the moral, religious, and intellectual improvement of Christian leaders of the colored people of Mississippi and the neighboring states.” In 1883 the school was renamed Jackson College and moved to the state capital, later relocating within Jackson to its current site — its original site is now occupied by Millsaps College. The Baptist Society withdrew financial support during the Great Depression in 1934, and in 1940 the school became a state-supported public institution, the Mississippi Negro Training School; it was renamed Jackson College for Negro Teachers in 1944 and later Jackson State College.

The 1970 Shootings

Many Jackson State students were active in the civil rights movement, and that activism continued after federal civil rights legislation passed in the mid-1960s. During an on-campus protest on May 14, 1970, police gunfire killed two students and wounded twelve others; a campus dormitory still bears the bullet marks from that day. The college became Jackson State University in 1974, after adding graduate programs and expanding its curriculum.