Tennessee State University

The school opened its doors in 1912 and was dedicated on January 16, 1913, as the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State Normal School for Negroes. It was renamed a normal college in 1925 and a state college in 1927, and Walter S. Davis, president from 1943 to 1968, oversaw its major expansion. The Southern Association accredited it in 1946, and it took the name Tennessee State University in 1968. In 1979 a federal court ordered the University of Tennessee at Nashville merged into it. Wilma Rudolph, the Olympic sprinter, is among its noted alumni.

What the plaque says

Tennessee State University Established in 1912 for the education of Negro citizens, Tennessee State University merged with UT-Nashville in 1979 and has become a major comprehensive urban university. Development from normal school to university progressed as follows: Tenn. A & I State Normal School (1912-1922); Tenn. A & I State Normal College (1922-1927); Tenn. A & I State College (1927-1951); Tenn. A & I University (1951-1969); Tennessee State University, beginning in 1970.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 1.1 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 2.3 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.4 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.6 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Lt. William McBryar, Buffalo Soldier Medal of Honor — steps away
• National Negro High School Basketball Tournament — steps away
• Juno Frankie Pierce — 0.3 mi
• Hadley Park — 0.3 mi