Jackson State University

History

The institution began as the Natchez Seminary, founded in 1877 by the American Baptist Home Mission Society to train Black preachers and teachers in Mississippi during the closing years of Reconstruction. It relocated to Jackson in 1882, and its mission evolved over the following decades from theological training to comprehensive college education. The state of Mississippi assumed control in 1940, and it became a state institution serving the Black population of Mississippi's capital city.

Jackson State — like Alcorn State — operated for decades within the grossly underfunded Mississippi system of Black higher education. The differential in state funding between white institutions like the University of Mississippi and Black institutions was not merely a matter of separate but equal — it was explicitly unequal, sustained by deliberate policy and defended in court for decades.

The civil rights movement was intensely active in Jackson throughout the 1960s. Medgar Evers, whose story is intertwined with Alcorn State, was the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary based in Jackson. His assassination in 1963 and the subsequent acquittals of his killer made Jackson a focal point of civil rights organizing. Jackson State's campus was adjacent to the geography of much of this organizing.

On May 14, 1970, Mississippi state police and city police fired on a crowd of students at Alexander Hall on the Jackson State campus. Two students were killed: Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, a 21-year-old pre-law student, and James Earl Green, a 17-year-old high school student who was walking home from work. The Jackson State killings occurred eleven days after the Kent State killings, but received significantly less national attention — a disparity that many observers attributed directly to race.

By fall 2025 Jackson State had grown into Mississippi’s largest HBCU, enrolling 6,464 students. The university also moved through a period of leadership instability, cycling through several presidents in under a decade. President Marcus L. Thompson resigned in May 2025, and in April 2026 the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning board named Dr. Denise Jones Gregory, a Jackson State alumna and former provost, the university’s 14th president and the first alumna to lead it permanently. Gregory, who had served as interim president for the prior year, formally assumed office on May 1, 2026, and the Institutions of Higher Learning arranged a year of outside executive-leadership support to steady a post that had turned over four times in six years.

May 14, 1970: The Jackson State Killings

On the night of May 14, 1970, 75 Mississippi state highway patrolmen and Jackson city police officers opened fire on students gathered near Alexander Hall at Jackson State. Over 460 rounds were fired in 28 seconds. Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed. Twelve others were wounded. No officers were charged. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest (the Scranton Commission) condemned the shootings as 'an unreasonable, unjustified overreaction.' The Jackson State killings received a fraction of the media attention given to Kent State, which had occurred eleven days earlier. The difference in coverage was noted by contemporaries and has been documented extensively by subsequent historians as evidence of how the national media valued Black lives.

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: Tim Spofford, Lynch Street: The May 1970 Slayings at Jackson State College (1988); President's Commission on Campus Unrest (Scranton Commission) Report (1970); Jackson State University archives; Pro Football Hall of Fame, Walter Payton biographical records; Mississippi Today and The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (2025-2026) on the presidential transition; Mississippi IHL fall 2025 enrollment data.