Fayetteville State University

education agenda was begun in Fayetteville's African American community with the founding of the Phillips and Sumner Schools for primary and intermediate learning. In 1867, the schools consolidated to form the Howard School, following the vision of the Freedmen's Bureau chief General Oliver O. Howard who erected a building on a tract of land generously donated by seven prominent African American men – Matthew N. Leary, Andrew Jackson Chesnutt, Robert Simmons, George Grainger, Thomas Lomax, Nelson Carter, and David A. Bryant – who together paid $136 for two lots on Gillespie Street in Fayetteville and formed among themselves a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees to maintain the property for the education of local black youth.
In 1877, an act of the North Carolina legislature provided for the establishment of the first teacher-training institution for African Americans in the state. Recognized for its successful record of educating black youth, the Howard School was selected for this designation and in that year …