I recall from my earliest years, it is not uncommon to have this kind of conversation:

“Where are you from?”
“Grambling.”
“No, I mean what town are you from?”
“Grambling.”
“There is town called Grambling?”

Yes. For Grambling natives, it is an old, familiar encounter. Most people who have heard the name associate Grambling solely with the university, not the community that spawned it. The most recent Grambling Chamber of Commerce magazine proudly boasts: “Grambling, La. is the story of a village that raised a university.”

It is an American success story that began more than 140 years ago when newly freed slaves settled here to build a farming community and other self-help institutions including one that would become Grambling State University. Street names, churches, historic markers and buildings make the community and the university a virtual living textbook of African-American history.

I take special pride in this community’s history as members of my family played a role in its early development. My great-granddad, Phillip Lewis Sr., was the first elected president of the Liberty Hill Baptist Association, founded in 1882. According to one source, it was his organization, along with the North Louisiana Colored Agricultural Farmers Relief Association Union, that in 1899, started an industrial training school that would eventually become Grambling State (although a historical marker at the original site of the university lists the founding year as 1896). Another great-grandfather, Gene Younger, was a member of the Farmers Relief Association Union.

These two organizations wrote a letter to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama with the request for someone to help with their fledgling school. Answering this call for aid, Washington sent Charles P. Adams, who arrived Aug. 4, 1901. Adams got the school on a good footing – expanded the curriculum, added teachers (mostly from Tuskegee) and increased the enrollment. But the relationship between Adams and the local groups ended in a dispute in 1903 over the direction of the school when the farm organization filed a suit to oust Adams as head of the school. Adams lost at the district level, but won on appeal. Adams wanted an industrial education school styled after Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. The farmers wanted a more liberal arts school to also train ministers.

At this point, Adams and his local supporters raised money and bought land about a mile and a half east of the original school – the present site of Grambling State University. In the process, at both locations, Adams often used his own money to keep the schools going.

Since that time, the small school, started by black farmers and ministers, nurtured by Booker T. Washington’s student, Charles P. Adams, has evolved into a world renowned institution with more than 5,000 students.

In its early years, the school catered to students primarily from surrounding parishes. I know of several families who moved here, some as early as the 1920s, so their children would be close to a school. Schools for blacks back then were rare in most rural areas of the south. Now, more than 40 percent of its students are from other states and around the world.

In 1941, two events would put the school on a path to world fame: A four-year curriculum was instituted and legendary coach Eddie G. Robinson was hired.

Robinson immediately went into the surrounding communities recruiting talent for his football team. Meeting with and convincing the parents were his brand of recruiting. One of his new recruits was my uncle Elmo Younger. A knee injury would sideline Uncle Elmo after the first year. However, a few years later, his first cousin Paul “Tank” Younger would join the team. Cousin Paul would go on to propel the name Grambling into the history books when in 1949 he became the first player from a black college to play in the National Football League and later the first black front office executive in the NFL.

Thus began the storied legend of Coach Eddie G. Robinson. For 57 seasons, he fielded competitive football teams to earn an unprecedented career 408 college football victories to set a NCAA record for Division I wins. He has sent more than 200 players into the NFL. In 1995, he became the first coach to break the 400-win threshold, an elusive goal for most coaches. On October 5, 1985, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Robinson was the first college football coach to surpass University of Alabama Bear Bryant's 323 wins.

These and other achievements will be memorialized in a museum bearing his name on the campus of Grambling State University. For those traveling with me on this leg of the North Louisiana African American Heritage Trail, The Eddie G. Robinson Museum is one of the two main attractions in Grambling. The other is the home of the founder of Grambling State University, Charles P. Adams.

The Eddie G. Robinson Museum
When I joined the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund board of directors in 1995, one of the first actions we voted on was a motion to hold the spring board meeting at Grambling State University, where I was employed at the time. The fund is a foundation promoting journalism education and internships.

I felt honored that they wanted to meet at my school, in my hometown. But the real reason they wanted to come to Grambling became apparent when then board president, former CNN commentator Al Hunt, asked, “Reg, do you think you can get Coach Robinson to speak to our group?”

“Of course,” I replied. I will never forget being in his office the next week to make the request. On one table was a videotape player and stacks of game tapes piled up next to it. On the floor leaning up against his desk piled high with papers and books was his signature tattered brown leather briefcase. Trophies and other awards were everywhere – in display cases, on the wall, on the floor, on tables and on window sills. As I eyed this lifetime of achievement, I quickly realized why the Dow Jones board members – former “Wall Street Journal” editors, journalism educators, and retired and working journalists from major media – were in awe of this man. This scene, his office, will be recreated in one of seven display areas when the Eddie G. Robinson Museum is projected to by year’s end. Renovation is under way on the former Women’s Memorial Gymnasium which will house this 8,000 sq. ft., $3.3 million museum (where Robinson also coached basketball in his career).

The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund board came, but Coach Eddie G. Robinson conquered their hearts again as he told story after story about his career, his team members, General Patton, Coach Vince Lombardi and Coach Bear Bryant. You know some things about people and then you forget them. I knew Coach Rob was also a legendary storyteller and he reminded me of it again that day. He told one story about Gen. Patton speaking to a national meeting of football coaches where he gave a lot of credit to football coaches and the men they coach. Many of his soldiers were football players who were instrumental in helping to win wars. The short of the story is that Patton’s speech brought these tough men like Bryant to tears. The funny part of Robinson’s story is when he described how they tried to hide it. The group was literally brought to their knees laughing.

Videos of functions such as this will be a part of the new state-of-the-art museum where visitors can experience the sights and sounds of his career through interactive exhibits. The completed facility will also contain a community meeting room, an archive, a research area and a retail museum store. Until this facility opens, the museum committee has a temporary display at the GSU Athletic Support Facility adjacent to the Eddie G. Robinson Stadium. It is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

GSU Founder’s Home and GSU Hall of Fame
Charles Phillip Adams and his wife Martha raised many of their six children in this house, built following his retirement in 1936. His daughter, Fidelia Johnson, told me in a 1989 interview that it was located in the middle of some 100 acres of what was then farmland owned by owned by her father. She was 84 at the time. Everybody called her Mama Fi.

Mama Fi talked about how “Papa” (Adams) wanted to build a town. He sold lots to incoming faculty and others. Some of his land served as the nucleus for one of the original communities in this rural area that would become the town of Grambling.

For several years after his death in 1961, the house was a private dormitory for women students. The Adams family donated the house to a university foundation in 1979 for historical preservation. Listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, the house has been restored to its 1930s charm, when it served as the Adams’ retirement residence. Hazel Johnson Jones, a retired GSU librarian who directed the restoration said that much of the home’s original character, including furniture, wallpaper and other appointments has been preserved. She said during the restoration, they were fortunate to find the original architectural plans and swatches of the original wallpaper tucked away in a stairway storage area. The modified ante bellum home was designed by Adam’s nephew, Lewis Warren Driver

Located in two of the four rooms upstairs is the Grambling State University Hall of Fame, which recognizes alumni who have made significant contributions to society and the university.

The house is open only to pre-arranged group tours. To arrange a tour, call Shirley Clay three days in advance at (318) 274-6404 in Institutional Advancement at GSU.

Other African-American cultural attractions in Grambling

Department of Art Gallery
Dunbar Hall, Grambling State University

The Art Department at GSU operates an art gallery where student and professional artists exhibit their work. Call (318) 274-2274 for their latest exhibit.

Colored Chautauqua – Marker
Immediately outside Grambling city limits near railroad tracks directly across from Ruston Development Center on W. Martin Luther King Avenue (2776 Highway 150).

The Chautauqua was a movement that promoted popular education at the turn of the last century and was strong in this area. Ruston was the state headquarters. This movement brought nationally recognized lecturers and also summer school to the general public--- and by extension to those who could not normally afford it.

Original Allen Greene School Site,
Birthplace of Grambling State University – Marker
On the grounds of the Liberty Hill Baptist Association, 118 Bennett Rd. at W. Martin Luther King Ave.

This marker notes that the Allen Greene Normal and Industrial Bible Institute operated here from 1896 to 1901. Charles P. Adams operated a school at this site before moving it 1.5 miles east to the present site of Grambling State University.

 
Please visit these other important spots along the North Louisiana African American Heritage Trail:
 
Hermione Museum
 
Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Museum
 
Southern University Museum of Art/Multicultural Center of the South