Southern University history

Southern officially opened their doors on March 7, 1881 on Calliope Street in New Orleans.

In 1890, the legislature designated Southern as a land grant college for blacks, in order to continue to satisfy federal requirements under the land grant program to support higher education for all students in the state, despite having a segregated system.

The school reopened March 9, 1914 under the presidency of Doctor Joseph Samuel Clark.

The Southern University Laboratory School System began operating in September 1922.

On September 14, 1927, the Houston Public School Board agreed to fund the development of two junior colleges: one for whites and one for African-Americans.

In the summer of 1934, the Houston School Board changed the junior college to a four-year college and the name to Houston College for Negroes.

In 1936, sixty-three individuals became members of the first graduating class.

The State School for the Negro Deaf and Blind was established here in 1938, under supervision of Southern University.

The college operated this way until the summer of 1943, when it formally added a graduate program.

In the spring of 1945, the Houston Independent School District severed its relationship with Houston College for Negroes, and thereafter all management of the college was vested in a Separate Board of Regents.

The College continued to operate in Yates High School, but by 1946 it had grown to an enrollment of approximately 1,400 students and needed room to grow.

However, on June 14, 1947, the decision was made to use the site of Houston College for Negroes, with its new campus at the center of a large and fast growing black population.

On June 1, 1951, the name of this new university for Negroes was changed from Texas State University for Negroes to Texas Southern University after students petitioned the state legislature to remove the phrase "for Negroes."

The Division of Technology was established in 1954, which offered a four-year baccalaureate program leading to a non-teaching degree in electronics.

The engineering college was established in 1956 as one of nine colleges at Southern University at Baton Rouge.

In 2001, the college saw completion of the new P.B.S. Pinchback Engineering building --a state-of-the-art facility that increased the size of the Engineering Complex by 117,000 square feet.

Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005 took a toll on all of the campuses but especially SUNO since it is situated near Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans.