Rust College

Founded in 1866 under the direction of the Freedom Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rust College sought to educate emancipated slaves and continued that mission by giving African American students a foundation for futures in business, law, medicine, education, and other careers. As the civil rights movement intensified during the 1960s, President E. A. Smith encouraged activism, and in 1960 students boycotted the segregated Holly Theater, a protest that evolved in 1962 into an NAACP Youth Chapter at Rust. On March 12, 1962, NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers installed its officers. That year, five Rust students visited the University of Mississippi to hear Howard K. Smith speak and became the first black students on that campus since James Meredith's graduation earlier that year. Also in 1962, SNCC became active at Rust as field secretary Frank Smith, living on campus, recruited students from Rust and Mississippi Industrial College. Students formed a Speakers Bureau that visited rural churches and community centers in Holly Springs and the surrounding area to foster voter registration and education during the Freedom Vote campaign, and Rust students later took part in forming the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and protested at the State Capitol in Jackson. In 1965 and the following years, President Dr. W. A. McMillan, administrator Johnny Jackson, faculty, and students worked to integrate public restaurants in Holly Springs as well as local clinics, doctors’ waiting rooms, and the bus terminal.

Holly Springs, Mississippi · United States