FUN FACTS ABOUT ALCORN STATE UNIVERSITY
1) Alcorn State University was founded as the result of the efforts of Mississippi officials trying to educate the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans.
2) Alcorn was named in honor of the then sitting governor of Mississippi, James L. Alcorn.
3) Alcorn is the oldest public historically black land-grant institution in the United States.
4) Alcorn is the second oldest state-supported institution of higher learning in Mississippi.
5) Alcorn was originally occupied by Oakland College, a school established by Presbyterians in 1828.
6) Hiram R. Revels resigned his seat as a United States senator to become Alcorn’s first president.
7) The college was exclusively for males at the time of establishment.
8) In 1878, Alcorn University became Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College.
9) The campus was purchased by the state of Mississippi in 1871.
10) Levi J. Rowan (1871-1934), an 1893 Alcorn graduate, became the first alumnus to serve as president of his alma mater in 1905.