Tuskegee’s Time

125th anniversary puts spotlight on the university’s renewed vision.

By Ronald Roach

Tuskegee, Ala.
From its earliest years, Tuskegee University, known initially as Tuskegee Institute, navigated the higher education landscape with considerable skill. Shifting after its 1881 founding from a state-controlled teachers’ institute to an independent, state-related college by the 1890s,

Tuskegee qualified as one of the 18 historically Black schools named as an “1890” federal land-grant institution. It became the only private Black school to benefit from the 1890 land-grant status, which made it eligible for federal funding. From the 1890s through the early years of the 20th century, the repositioned Tuskegee prospered, as its famous founder, Booker T. Washington, proved successful at securing financial support from northern industrialists and other philanthropists.

“The genius of Washington was that he changed Tuskegee’s relationship with the state of Alabama such that [the school] developed without undue restrictions ... He did it very carefully.

He did not reject the state affiliation,” explains Dr. Benjamin F. Payton, Tuskegee’s current president. “Tuskegee is a very fortunate institution in part because of the quality of the leadership that established it.”

In 2006, Tuskegee officials, faculty, students, and alumni celebrated the school’s 125th anniversary, marking accomplishments that include the school’s aggressive effort to expand science and engineering research and to produce African-American doctorates from its relatively new Ph.D. programs. Tuskegee is now seen as a modest-sized but effective producer of Black graduates in business, engineering and the sciences, an outcome consistent with the pragmatic vision Washington espoused for African-American advancement. 

The past quarter century during which Payton has served as the school’s president saw Tuskegee develop two science and engineering Ph.D. programs, establish an aerospace engineering department and become the site for a federally sponsored National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care.