North Carolina A&T Alumni in the News

May 30, 1901, 125 years ago, three students were awarded bachelors’ degrees from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the Colored Race (now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University). This ceremony featured the smallest graduating class in A&T history, and yet they still have profound meaning in our modern prestigious university. Their class motto was “Fortune Favors The Brave”.  To understand the class’s size and significance, some…

There is great excitement in 2026 with news that a Netflix reboot sequel of A Different World is going into production with A&T alum Joshua Suitor among the new cast. This is tremendous news in the 70+ years Aggies have appeared on TV. With this news let’s revisit the original A Different World a landmark in representation of HBCUs, budding African American professionals with a strong memory of one Aggieland’s greatest alumni.   For those who don’t know, A Different World (1987 – 1993) was the sitcom spin-off of the hit television series The Cosby Show (1984-1992) that initially followed daughter Denise…

When Tanya Y. Mitchell introduced More Than a Dean to the Aggie community, she did more than release a book. She honored a man who helped shape her future and generations of North Carolina A&T students; Dean Quiester Craig. She arrived at North Carolina A&T in 1975 from Roper, North Carolina, with a clear goal and a strong work ethic.…

In Aggieland, if you just say the name “Elreta” generations know who you are talking about. Those who do not know are always amazed when they learn about her. Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston (1919–1998) was a barrier breaking African American attorney and jurist who was not only the first African American judge elected in North Carolina but also the first Black woman to be elected a judge from a popular election in the nation.   Her birth and…

Over the course of two consecutive weekends, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University elevated its national profile as its documentary, “Our Blues Make Us Gold,” earned a Nashville/Midsouth Regional Emmy Award nomination and was later featured during a special screening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. What began as a project…

Black History has a long and deep legacy at A&T and unknown to many Aggies until recent years, our university directly inspired the creation of “Negro History Week, or what is now called Black History Month.   A&T has a full heritage of being a proud HBCU land grant college and efforts to teach the history of Black Americans are rooted from our earliest faculty. Mrs. Susie B. Dudley (c.1852-1933) the matriarch of theatre arts at…

Alumni chapters of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University have proudly organized the February One Reading Project for a number of years, creating an initiative designed to educate and inspire children across the United States about the powerful legacy of the A&T Four.  Each February, alumni chapter members share the book “Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down” by Andrea…

When Gov. Josh Stein appointed North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University alumna Alicia Marks Flowers to Superior Court for Judicial District 14B in Cumberland County, North Carolina, it brought her back to the community that shaped her earliest understanding of justice. “This moment represents coming full circle,” she said. “I am returning home to serve the people and the…

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Jan. 28, 2026) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University paid tribute to alumnus, physicist and astronaut Ronald E. McNair, Ph.D., Wednesday, Jan. 28, on the 40th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger disaster that took the lives of him and his six fellow crew members. But McNair himself, his life and legacy is what the community…

January 28, 1986, is a date that anyone old enough will remember where they were and what they were doing. Tragically, that morning, only 73 seconds into liftoff, the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts on board. The first fatal shuttle mission in American history, millions worldwide watched this event unfold, a number amplified by extensive live…