Fisk University

Fisk University is a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. It was established by John Ogden, Reverend Erastus Milo Cravath and Reverend Edward P. Smith and named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen's Bureau. Fisk opened to classes on January 9, 1866. Fisk heralded its first African American president with the arrival of Charles Spurgeon Johnson in 1947. Johnson was a premier sociologist, a scholar who had been the editor of Opportunity magazine, a noted periodical of the Harlem Renaissance. Fisk University is currently under the direction of its 14th president, the Honorable Hazel O'Leary, former Secretary of Energy under President William Jefferson Clinton. She is the second female president of the university.

Fisk University features the world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers, originally a group of traveling students who set out from Nashville to earn enough money to save the school and raise sufficient funds to build the first permanent structure in the country solely built for the education of newly-freed slaves, the renowned and recently-restored Jubilee Hall. It is the oldest, and most distinctive, structure of Victorian architecture on the 40 acre (160,000 m²) Fisk campus.

Fisk University is also the home of a music literature collection founded by the noted Harlem Renaissance figure Carl van Vechten, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Carl van Vechten.

Among many other notable firsts, Fisk University was the first historically black college or university to earn its Phi Beta Kappa Charter in 1952.

Notable alumni

• St. Elmo Brady, first African-American to earn a doctorate in chemistry.
• Joyce Bolden, first African-American woman to serve on the Commission for Accreditation of the National Association of Schools of Music
• Cora Brown, first African-American woman to be elected to a state senate
• Hortense Canady, past national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated
• Aaron Douglas, painter, illustrator, muralist
• W.E.B. DuBois, sociologist, scholar, first black to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
• John Hope Franklin, historian, professor, scholar, author of landmark text, From Slavery to Freedom, graduate of the class of 1935
• Nikki Giovanni, poet, author, professor, scholar
• Louis George Gregory, Hand of the Cause in the Bahá'í Faith
• Alcee Hastings, U.S. Congressman and former U.S. district court judge
• Roland Hayes, concert singer
• Robert James, former NFL cornerback
• Ted Jarrett, R&B recording artist and producer
• Percy Lavon Julian, second African-American, first African-American chemist to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• James Weldon Johnson, author, poet and civil rights activist, author of the "Negro National Anthem" "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"
• John Lewis, politician, civil rights activist, former President of SNCC
• Alma Powell, wife of Gen. Colin Powell
• Kaye George Roberts, orchestral conductor
• Kym Whitley, actress, comedienne

Notable faculty

• Lee Lorch, mathematician and civil rights activist. Fired in 1955 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Wikipedia information about Fisk University This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fisk University". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.