LeMoyne-Owen College

History

The institutional lineage of LeMoyne-Owen College begins in 1862, when the American Missionary Association established Lincoln Chapel at Camp Shiloh as an elementary school for freedmen, refugees from enslavement, and Black children in the Union-occupied lower Mississippi Valley. That makes the college's founding one of the earliest schools for Black Americans established south of the Mason-Dixon Line — predating the formal Reconstruction period.

The school relocated to Memphis in 1863 and was destroyed during the 1866 Memphis Massacre, a three-day campaign of anti-Black violence that left at least 46 Black Memphians dead. The AMA rebuilt the school. In 1871 it was renamed LeMoyne Normal Institute after Dr. Francis Julius LeMoyne, a Pennsylvania physician and abolitionist whose substantial financial gift funded the reconstruction. The institution attained collegiate status as LeMoyne College in 1934.

Owen College, the institution's other ancestor, was founded in 1947 as a junior college by the Tennessee Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention and named for S. A. Owen, a prominent Memphis Baptist minister. The two institutions merged in 1968 to form LeMoyne-Owen College — a merger driven partly by the financial pressures both schools faced and partly by the shared judgment that Memphis's Black community would be better served by a single, stronger college than by two competing institutions.

The merged college sits on its historic Walker Avenue campus in South Memphis. It debuted its first official mascot, Walker the Magician, during Homecoming 2024 — a notable institutional moment for a college whose athletic teams have been called the Magicians for decades without a costumed mascot.

In July 2024 the board of trustees named Dr. Christopher B. Davis — a Memphis Baptist pastor who had led the college as interim president since 2023 — its fourteenth president; he was formally installed in April 2025. At his investiture Davis announced the Magician Advantage, a loan-repayment initiative offering graduates earning under $45,000 a year up to $20,000 annually toward student loan debt, a direct answer to the affordability pressures that weigh on enrollment at small private HBCUs. Under Davis, enrollment has climbed roughly 18 percent to about 688, and he has set a public goal of 1,000 students by 2028; the college posted a modest enrollment gain in fall 2025 even as several other Memphis-area institutions saw declines.

Notable Alumni

A representative selection.

Significance

LeMoyne-Owen's 1862 founding makes it one of the oldest institutions for Black education in the country and one of only a handful established during the Civil War itself rather than in its aftermath. The destruction of the school during the 1866 Memphis Massacre and its rebuilding through Northern philanthropy ties the institution directly to the most violent moments of early Reconstruction.

For modern Memphis — a majority-Black city with a complex history of civil rights leadership and unfinished work — LeMoyne-Owen functions as the city's only direct HBCU anchor. The college's recent enrollment growth and its long association with civil rights leadership (Barry, Hooks, Herenton) make it a small institution that has produced an outsized share of the city's political class.

Recent Developments

In July 2026 the college expanded its South Memphis footprint from roughly 17 to 20 acres with two acquisitions on Mississippi Boulevard. It purchased a 7,462-square-foot building at 1044 Mississippi Blvd. from the YWCA of Greater Memphis for $500,000 to house the School of Education, and the former Bethel Presbyterian Church at 1060 Mississippi Blvd., which a planned $1.5 million renovation will convert into the School of Business and Entrepreneurship. The expansion anchors the college more firmly in the Soulsville neighborhood it has served since its founding.

Source notes: Founding history from LeMoyne-Owen College institutional records, the American Missionary Association archives, and historical scholarship on the 1866 Memphis Massacre. Accreditation status from SACSCOC. Mascot debut and enrollment figures from current college communications. The enrollment trend and the July 2026 Soulsville campus expansion from the Memphis Flyer and The Daily Memphian. Discrepancies noted in the corrections log.