Grambling State University

The North Louisiana Colored Agriculture Relief Association founded a school on November 1, 1901, built to serve rural African American farmers in a state where Jim Crow laws were forming and disenfranchisement was codified two years before in the 1898 constitution. What began as agricultural training on Delta soil became Grambling State University in 1974, holding 375 acres today. Eddie Robinson coached football here for fifty-six years. Over two hundred alumni played professional football. The World-Famed Tiger Marching Band performed at two presidential inaugurations — the sound of a place that built what the state tried to deny. You come because this campus is what people made when the law said they couldn't vote, couldn't ride the same train car, couldn't expect equal anything. They built a university anyway. The band still plays.