“Fortune Favors the Brave” The Small, But Superb Class of 1901

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 background history is needed. A&T was established by an act of the NC General Assembly that was ratified on March 09, 1891. By 1893 an established Board of Trustees had elected our first president, and a bid was won by the city of Greensboro to locate the college close to the city’s railroad depot. The first campus building was opened in the first week of November in 1893. At first a decision was made to only enroll males, but that was quickly changed to a co-educational setting.  

In 1897 under President James B. Dudley, A&T was accredited to award the bachelor’s degree and the first 7 graduates, known as the “Superior Seven” or the “Magnificent Seven” in Aggie Lore walked in 1899. Between 1897 and 1901 A&T had over 100 students enrolled, but only a few would complete the requirements for their bachelor’s degree.  

The 1901 commencement services were not small. For many years commencement was 4 or more days. There was a Sunday sermon by the Rev. Henry Beard Delany, a Monday address to the religious societies by J. D. Chavis president of Bennett College, a Tuesday address to the literary societies by C. G. O’Kelly of Winston-Salem, (yes Rams, that C. G. O’Kelly), Wednesday was Industrial Day with tours of the dairy barn and workshops to the public, and Thursday, May 30 was the final commencement with an address by Dr. E. W. Smith.  

Edgar Fulton Colson 

E. F. Colson (1876-1957) earned the Bachelors in Agriculture. He came to the A&M College from Ansonville, Anson County, NC. As a student Colson was a member of the campus YMCA, and the Eclectic Society.  

After graduating, he began teaching agriculture at the Joseph K. Brick School in Enfield, NC. He would later teach at Kittrell College in Kittrell, NC and Williston High School in Wilmington, NC. 

He had post graduate studies at Tuskegee Institute under President Booker T. Washington and agricultural director George Washington Carver where he also taught. He resigned from that position in 1910 to begin teaching dairy and animal husbandry back at the A&M College.  

E. F. Colson in A&M College group photo from 1910-1911 campus bulletin.  

Beginning in 1919, Colson was appointed the “Demonstration Agent for Colored Farmers” for Anson County, NC for the Agricultural (Cooperative) Extension Service. He was also a farm demonstration agent in Duplin County and Pasquotank County, NC until his retirement in 1941. In these roles Colson organized county fairs and short courses for an untold number of Black Farmers in Eastern North Carolina. 

He and his wife Mamie, a Shaw University graduate, were the parents of at least 5 children, among them Dr. Joseph Sampson Colson M.D. who also graduated from A&T in 1941, and from Howard University’s Medical School. Dr. Colson was also a trailblazing doctor in Granville County, NC and the first African American on the Oxford, NC Board of Commissioners.  

Gaston Alonzo Edwards 

Gaston Alonzo Edwards (1875-1943) has a permanent place in NC history as the state’s first licensed African American architect. He studied architectural and mechanical training at A&M College, with further studies at Cornell University. While teaching at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, Edwards developed an architectural practice. He was recalled as the designer of numerous buildings and homes, mostly in the Raleigh Durham areas. Among his known designs were the 1909-1910 renovations of the historic St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Raleigh, NC, and Tyler Hall for the Leonard Medical School also in Raleigh. 

Gaston Alonzo Edwards, c. 1917.  

When NC’s General Assembly passed an act requiring licenses for architects in 1915, Edwards passed the new requirements and became the first licensed architect of color in the state.  

An esteemed educator, Edwards was also one of a few Aggies to serve as President of Kittrell College beginning in 1919. Following the death of A&T College President James B. Dudley in 1925, Edwards was the favored candidate to be A&T’s next leader by many in the A&T Alumni Association, but the state felt that he was too valuable to the Kittrell Community. 

Frances Grimes  

Last alphabetically, but certainly not least was Frances T. Grimes (1889** – 1952) from Asheville, NC. Grimes was the first woman bachelor’s degree recipient in the university’s history. She would also be one of only 3 until the 1928-1929, academic year as the college stopped admitting women for the undergraduate degrees in 1901. She is listed in campus bulletins for the bachelor’s in science. The A&M College at the time had a “Women’s Course” for the B.S, the only option outside of Bachelor’s of Agriculture and Bachelors’ of Science for Mechanical Arts.  

Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Grimes attended the Catholic Hill School before enrolling at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the Colored Race in 1897. After earning her degree, Grimes worked as a teacher and community leader in Asheville and Charlotte, NC contributing to education and church activities.  

Later in life, Frances Grimes married fellow Aggie Charles L. Bryant Sr. ‘1900 a student of the preparatory department, becoming part of a multigenerational A&T family legacy.  

Their Legacy 125 years later 

Colson, Edwards and Grimes each represented the old A&M Colleges in three bachelor’s degree’s courses: Agricultural, Mechanical and the Women’s course. They also foreshadowed an ever-expanding college that is now the #1 public HBCU. G. A. Edwards was a living prediction that Aggieland would produce many future college and university leaders and geniuses in architectural engineering and design who would also create innovative structures for neighborhoods, campuses, medical facilities and more. E. F. Colson embodied the agricultural missions of A&T and our Cooperative Extension Services with his work in public schools, vocational schools, county fairs, short courses and agricultural communications. While Aggieland did close the doors to women for bachelor’s degrees for a season, Frances Grimes was enough proof of what A&M could do when the doors were open to both sexes. Today A&T’s enrollment is 61% female, and our alumnas are CEO, college presidents, scientists, and every field imaginable.  

A special thanks goes to Mrs. Leslie G. Buschmann archives technician for abundant information on E. F. Colson, and to Mrs. Shavon N. Stewart ‘08 for cracking the hardest pieces in the mystery of Frances Grimes in 2021. After years of searching, the University Archives does not have a positively identified image of Frances Grimes. We would like to learn more about her life. She may still have relatives in Wilmington or Asheville, NC. The Archives has a Class of 1900 portrait, but none from the class of 1899 or 1901.  

If you have more information about this story, or would like to know more about A&T history, please contact the University Archives and Special Collections at libraryarchives@ncat.edu 

*Some public records give Colson’s birth date as 1887, but his World War I draft records say 1876, which is closer to his age in U.S. Census records.  

**Frances T. Grimes birth year varies from 1884 to 1887 in public records.

By: James R. Stewart, Archives/Specialist Collect Librarian