Qualla: North Carolina A&T State University

North Carolina A&T State University: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the afternoon of February 1, 1960, four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College walked into the F.W. Woolworth's on South Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, ordered coffee at the segregated lunch counter, and refused to leave when refused service. Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond would become known to history as the Greensboro Four. The sit-in they began that day cascaded across the South within weeks. Everything they would later be famous for - the courage, the strategy, the unwillingness to back down - had been seeded on a campus nine blocks east of where they sat that afternoon, the campus the world now knows as N.C. A&T.

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina A&T State University: Aggieland

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The campus students call Aggieland sprawls across more than 200 acres in eastern Greensboro, a city of roughly 285,000 in the Piedmont Triad. The university traces its founding to 1891, when North Carolina established it as a land-grant college for Black students - the agricultur...

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0

North Carolina A&T State University: The A&T Four

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cewatkin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Inside The Aggie Village, four of the residential units carry the names Blair, McCain, McNeil, and Richmond. They replaced an older dormitory, W. Kerr Scott Hall, that was ceremoniously demolished in 2004 - the same hall the National Guard raided in May 1969 during what one obser...

Image: Cewatkin | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina A&T State University: Engineers and Astronauts

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cewatkin, CC BY-SA 3.0. McNair Hall, constructed in 1987, is named for Ronald McNair, A&T class of 1971 - the physicist who flew aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger and died with the crew on January 28, 1986, when the orbiter broke apart 73 seconds after launch. The College of Engineering he inspired is...

Image: Cewatkin | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina A&T State University: GHOE

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The White House, Public domain. Every October the city tilts toward Aggieland for what students and alumni simply call GHOE - the Greatest Homecoming on Earth. Tens of thousands of alumni return for a week of parades, step shows, concerts, tailgates, and the home football game that anchors it all. In 2024 law e...

Image: The White House | Public domain