Campbell College (Mississippi)

J. P. Campbell College (1890 - 1964) was a junior college in Mississippi focused on educating Black youth.[1] It was affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church.[2] In its final years, the early 1960s, it enrolled three hundred students.[3] Robert M. Stevens was then president of the college.[4]

Founded in Vicksburg, it moved to Jackson in 1898.[2] Perry W. Howard served as its president from 1899 until 1900. M. M. Ponton became president of the college in 1907.[5]

On April 8, 1960, Black civil rights activist Medgar Evers announced the Easter boycott of downtown Jackson merchants from a press conference at the college. Charles A. Jones, Campbell College's dean of religion, led the boycott campaign.[6]

In October 1961, students from Burglund High School marched through downtown McComb in solidarity with Brenda Travis, a fifteen-year-old student who had been arrested and sentenced for participating in a voter registration drive and sit-ins. Around 1600 students were arrested as they prayed on the steps of City Hall. Berglund's principal required students to sign a pledge to avoid participation in further protests in order to attend school. In response, Campbell College offered Berglund students who refused an opportunity to enroll.[3][2]

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission monitored Campbell College's civil rights activities, placing its president Robert Stevens and dean of religion Charles Jones on its "trouble-makers list."[3] In February 1962, conservative members of the college's Board of Trustees and the AME Church filed for injunction to remove Stevens, Jones, and other administrators from their duties. The Chancery Court allowed the Board of Trustees to reconstituted, but the new board reinstated Steven and Jones four months later.[3] Civil rights activism continued on campus after 1962, but the college and its sponsor the Eighth Episcopical District lost money in the process, as well as in a separate land transaction.

In 1964, the state of Mississippi seized the college by eminent domian.[2] Scholar Jay Ann Williamson writes that, "Legislators never called it an act of retribution, but Campbell's pace in the Jackson movement cleraly influenced the decision."[3] Williamson argues that "The demise of Campbell College provides an extreme example of private HBCU [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] vulnerability to state attempts to quash the Civil Rights Movement."[3]