Savannah State University

Overview

Savannah State University is a public historically Black university in Savannah, Georgia, the oldest historically Black public university in the state, founded as a result of the Second Morrill Land Grant Act of August 30, 1890, which required Southern and border states to establish land-grant colleges for Black students given their segregated systems. The Georgia General Assembly created the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth on November 26, 1890; a preliminary session was held at the Baxter Street School in Athens under principal Richard R. Wright Sr. before the school moved to its permanent Savannah location on October 7, 1891, with Wright as its first president, five faculty members, and eight students, all graduates of Augusta’s Edmund Asa Ware High School — the first public high school for Black students in the city. The campus was built on the former lands of Placentia Plantation, including its enslaved-persons’ cemetery.