Alabama State University celebrates founders during 150th anniversary
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama State University has honored its founders at an event commemorating its 150th anniversary.
Nine former slaves established the Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Alabama, in 1867. The school later moved to Montgomery and changed its name to ASU.
Descendants of the founders at the event held Tuesday exchanged stories, photo albums and historical artifacts from their ancestors, known as the “Marion Nine,” to celebrate the long-lasting investment they made in education for African Americans.
“They started a school and it survived Jim Crow, black codes and all efforts to put African Americans back in a pseudo-slavery situation,” said Gary Franklin, a genealogist and great-grandson of two of the founders.
For perspective, Marion Nine member Thomas Lee could not write his name and signed the school incorporation papers with a single “X,” historian Robert Bailey said.
“Any kid or parent who needs inspiration, all they have to do is look at these people who didn’t have the benefit of an education but valued it. That’s why we’re here today,” Bailey said.
But as The Montgomery Advertiser reported , until recently, the history of the university’s founding was not widely known.
Students in the past celebrated William Paterson as the university’s founder. The Scottish native served as one of the first presidents of the university is credited with relocating the school to Montgomery.
“Each Founder’s Day we celebrated him,” said Frazine Taylor, an ASU archives assistant who was a student at the university when it was called Alabama State College. “We sang his favorite song. How many of you remember his favorite song? ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’? Can you imagine a whole campus of black students singing ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’?”
Joseph Caver’s 1982 thesis “A Twenty-Year History of Alabama State University, 1867-1887,” played a large role in Taylor and others learning of the Marion Nine, but Bailey said research done by Franklin solidified that history for future generations of students.
“This event actually places the history of Alabama State in its proper perspective and gives people a sense of how far this university has come,” Bailey said. “People look around today and see the nice buildings and fail to realize someone had to sacrifice something to reach the level of excellence it’s at today.”
Franklin began researching his lineage and the Marion Nine in high school and college, but it wasn’t until he was working near Washington D.C. that he was able to do proper research, utilizing U.S. Census records and the Library of Congress in the years before the internet.
That was in the 1980s when Franklin, a Toledo, Ohio native, first visited Montgomery and Marion and connected with other descendants. Franklin’s genealogical hunt came to a halt after he moved away from the Washington D.C. area, but it was rekindled after the advent of the internet and the access to genealogical databases that came with it.
“The biggest lesson for all of us to learn is the school was founded by nine former slaves who really understood the value of education to make that leap from slavery to full participation in the American experience,” Franklin said. “The big lesson for me is to realize they had such a chasm to cross, it makes any challenges we today have seem so insignificant.”
