Alcorn State University

History

Alcorn State was established by the Mississippi Legislature on May 13, 1871, on the site of Oakland College — a white institution that had closed during the Civil War. The decision to repurpose a formerly white college for Black students was itself a product of Reconstruction-era politics, reflecting both the aspirations of freedpeople and the contested nature of postwar governance in the South.

The university was named after James L. Alcorn, a Republican governor of Mississippi who had supported the legislation creating the institution, though his political record on race was mixed at best. This naming — an institution for Black Mississippians bearing the name of a white politician — reflected the ambiguities of Reconstruction accommodation and compromise.

Under the Morrill Act of 1890, Congress required states with racially segregated higher education systems to provide land-grant funding to Black institutions. Alcorn became Mississippi's Black land-grant institution, receiving federal funding for programs in agriculture, mechanics, and applied sciences. This designation gave the university both resources and a mission that persists today through its College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences.

Throughout the Jim Crow era, Alcorn State operated under severe underfunding compared to Mississippi's white land-grant institution, Mississippi State. The differential in state appropriations persisted for decades and was the subject of legal challenges that extended into the late twentieth century.

Today Alcorn State enrolls roughly 4,300 students across its Lorman, Natchez, and Vicksburg campuses, ranking among the largest HBCUs in Mississippi. Dr. Tracy M. Cook, inaugurated in October 2024 as the institution’s twenty-first president, was named to the 2026 Mississippi Top 100 by the Magnolia Tribune. In his August 2026 State of the University address, Cook tied the institution’s next chapter to enrollment growth, a sizable capital program, and the integration of artificial intelligence into teaching and operations: the roughly $28 million Davey L. Whitney HPER Complex was set to break ground, the $7.28 million renovation of Robinson Hall had been completed, and a new science building and athletics facilities were in planning — investments he framed as advancing the university’s stated goal of attaining R2 high-research-activity status. The university continues to anchor its land-grant mission through its College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences.

The Medgar Evers Legacy

Alcorn State's most consequential alumnus is Medgar Evers, who enrolled at Alcorn in 1948 after serving in World War II. Evers organized voter registration drives in Mississippi as the NAACP's first field secretary in the state, a role of extraordinary danger. He was assassinated in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 12, 1963, by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith was tried twice in the 1960s, both trials ending in hung juries with all-white panels. He was not convicted until 1994. Evers's widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, later served as chair of the NAACP.

Notable Alumni

A representative selection. Alumni records are verified against institutional and published sources. Unverified entries are flagged explicitly — we do not fabricate records.

Source notes: Mississippi Legislature, Act of May 13, 1871; Julius E. Thompson, The Black Press in Mississippi, 1865–1985 (1993); Myrlie Evers and William Peters, For Us, the Living (1967); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reports on land-grant funding disparities.