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Some Fort Valley State History
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.”
Founders of FVSU
The chains of physical slavery were broken in the United States by the Civil War, but the chains of mental slavery could only be broken through education. 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. FVSU is one of few colleges founded by former slaves, including founders Davison, Virgil Gideon Barnett, Peter Fann, Henry Lowman, Thomas McAfee, James Isaac Miller, Charlie H. Nixon, and Thomas W. Williams, who bonded with founders Stephen Elisha Bassett, Allen Cooper, Francis W. Gano, John Howard Hale, David Jones, J.R. Jones, D.L. Lawrence, Alonzo L. Nixon, and Lee O’Neal to create an enduring testament to the power of knowledge to overcome fear and mistrust.
The two original instructors, Principal Davison and his wife Hattie, were undaunted, however, as were the students, who built many of the campus’s original buildings with their own hands, including Founders, Carnegie, Peabody, Patton, and Ohio Halls, as well as infirmary. Much of the funding for the school came from its neighbors, uneducated African Americans who sacrificed their own meager finances to make possible the education of others. The institution’s first goal was to enable the proliferation of education to the masses, and set about training teachers who could then spread knowledge. Teachers were not the only professionals the institution produced, however. One of the first graduates of the young school was Austin Thomas Walden, who graduated in 1902 and became Georgia’s first black judge since Reconstruction.
Davison’s successor was Henry Alexander Hunt, Jr., a graduate of Atlanta University who was an expert carpenter as well as a teacher whose contributions to Georgia include work building the state capitol building. He taught at Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) before coming to Fort Valley High and Industrial School in 1904 to mold it in the model of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee University.
First home of Fort Valley High and Industrial School— Odd Fellows’ Hall, Fort Valley, GA.
From the beginning, Fort Valley High and Industrial School was not only committed to the well-being of its students, but that of the surrounding area as well, where agriculture was then the root of the local economy. This commitment was personified by Otis Samuel O’Neal, who made a mission of improving nutrition for families in rural Georgia, many of whom were the poor descendants of slaves. O’Neal created the Ham and Egg Show, began in 1916 as a way to encourage local farmers to produce more food by showcasing examples of high quality meat. The show became a national sensation, first growing to a week of agriculture education sessions for farmers from all over the country, and later mushrooming into a full-blown folk and blues festival, profiled in Readers Digest and Life magazines and CBS radio, among other national media. Like O’Neal, Hunt’s wife Florence was greatly concerned with the health of the people in the areas surrounding the school. Because the area did not have a hospital, Mrs. Hunt raised the funds to construct an infirmary which served as the central treatment location for both black and white local residents.