Since 1895, Fort Valley State University has empowered people to use education as a pathway to maximize their potential through invention, intellectual fulfillment, civic leadership, and meaningful careers. It was founded 122 years ago as a bridge to prosperity for the first generations of free black men and women in America and has a continuing legacy of producing leaders in a broad range of fields critical to human advancement. FVSU’s legacy is built on the belief that every human being is entitled to limitless learning, regardless of the circumstances of its birth. As expressed in its first academic catalog as a college, the institution exists to give students “a better chance in life” and help uplift people, “wherever the college can, through its graduates.”

 

On November 6, 1895, an interracial group of 15 black men— at least half of whom were former slaves— and three white men, petitioned the Superior Court of Houston County, GA to legalize the creation of a school to “promote the cause of mental and manual education in the state of Georgia,” and the Fort Valley High and Industrial School was born. The group’s leader, John Wesley Davison, himself a child slave, was hired as its first principal after its incorporation on January 6, 1896. The school’s popularity was overwhelming, and enrollment pushed the boundaries of its capacity. 

 

Fort Valley High and Industrial School changed its name to Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School in 1932. A “normal school” was then a commonly used term to identify schools which trained teachers. In 1939, the state of Georgia acquired Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School and designated it a four-year senior college named Fort Valley State College. The action came as the state ended its support for Forsyth County, GA’s State Teachers and Agricultural College, founded by William Merida Hubbard. That school, also in middle Georgia, had been designated as Georgia’s “school for agriculture and mechanic arts for the training of Negroes,” by the state legislature in 1922. After the creation of Fort Valley State College (FVSC), the state’s higher education efforts for African Americans in middle Georgia were concentrated there.