Alabama A&M University

Overview

Alabama A&M University is a public historically Black land-grant university in Normal, Alabama, part of Huntsville. Founded in 1875 as a state-run normal school, it took its present name in 1969 and is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Teacher William Hooper Councill won approval for his plan for the Huntsville State Normal School for Negroes, established by an act of the Alabama State Legislature in 1875. The school opened on May 1, 1875, at a church on Eustis Street, with 61 students overseen by Councill as principal, assisted by the Rev. Alfred Hunt. It was one of about 180 “normal schools” founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers, and one of 23 established specifically to train African Americans to teach in segregated schools. By 1878, the state appropriation for the school had grown from $1,000 to $2,000.

From Church Basement to Land-Grant College

In 1881, the school’s faculty pooled their own salaries to buy two and a half acres of land on West Clinton Street. By 1885, with roughly 180 students, it was renamed the State Normal and Industrial School of Huntsville after adding programs in sewing, printing, carpentry, and gardening, and the surrounding area became known as Normal, Alabama. In 1891 the school was designated a land-grant college under the Morrill Act of 1890, and it adopted its current name, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, in June 1969.