Fayetteville State University

Fayetteville State University is a historically black public regional university in Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States. FSU is part of the University of North Carolina System and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.HistoryThe institution that would become Fayetteville State University and be recognized as the second oldest state supported school in North Carolina had humble yet promising beginnings. Immediately following the Civil War in 1865, a robust education agenda was begun in Fayetteville's African-American community with the founding of the Phillips and Sumner Schools for primary and intermediate learning. Soon after, in 1867, these schools consolidated to form the Howard School following the vision of the Freedmen's Bureau chief General Oliver O. Howard who erected a building on a tract of land generously donated by seven prominent African-American men – Matthew N. Leary, Andrew J. Chestnutt, Robert Simmons, George Grainger, Thomas Lomax, Nelson Carter, and David A. Bryant – who together paid $136 for two lots on Gillespie Street in Fayetteville and formed among themselves a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees to maintain the property for the education of local black youth. In 1877, an act of the North Carolina legislature provided for the establishment of the first teacher training institution for African-Americans in the state. Recognized for its successful record of educating black youth, the Howard School was selected for this designation and in that year became the State Colored Normal School and the first state-sponsored institution for the education of African-American teachers in the South.