Part 2: The Origins of the Greatest Homecoming on Earth
[This text is intended to show how homecoming grew from about 1930 up until the late 1970s, Part III would be about the inclusion of Truist Stadium, modern customs, and once confirmed, the origin of the phrase: The Greatest Homecoming On Earth.”]
1947 Homecoming Miss A&T Felicia Payne – Ayantee 1948
“5,000 Grid Fans Enjoy College’s Gala Home-Coming!” was a national headline for the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race in 1936. More than 75 years ago in 1951, “20,000 homecoming fans” watched A&T tie 7-7 with the Florida A. and M. Rattlers.
Today in 2026, 200,000 people are anticipated to come to campus and the city of Greensboro for the 100th edition of “The Greatest Homecoming on Earth.” That is a 3,900 percent growth in 90 years and it is an historic example of “A&T Exponential.”
How did North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University’s homecoming continue to grow into the greatest – an event so big that it fills the Piedmont Triad and has been known as “one of the top social and athletic weekends in the entire Southeast.” The archives can provide no single answer, although many will say it is “Aggie Pride” or “the Good Ol’ Aggie Spirit.”
So let’s look at how homecoming and North Carolina A&T grew throughout part of the 20th century.
The growth of homecoming parallels the impressive rise of N.C. A&T itself. Beginning in the F.D. Bluford era (1925-1955), A&T’s academic rating rose to an “A” and enrollment increased rapidly, especially following World War II, and has continued ever since. Increased enrollment means more students, their families and future alumni who look forward to homecoming.
Each passing year, with the exception of the COVID-19 years, has seen an increase of attendance at homecoming. Yearly, the headlines proclaim that the season’s game and festivities will be the biggest homecoming ever. “…Another record crowd will view the game,” said N.C. Webster, A&T treasurer, in anticipation of the 1930 homecoming game. To be festive with growing crowds led to the creation of many lasting traditions and customs that alumni still celebrate after 90 years, along with some that have come and gone.
The college tradition of homecoming centers around the big football game, rain or shine. A century of homecoming has seen the Aggie bulldogs play on muddy days in World War Memorial Stadium to big spectacular crowds at Truist Stadium beginning in 1981.
After alumni initiated the first parade in 1934, the floats were mainly from Greek organizations and gradually more student clubs were included. By the 1960s, the parade also featured multiple bands from regional schools. Sixty years ago, the “mile long parade” of 1966 attracted over “25,000 spectators.” In the earliest years, there were two parades: one before the game and one during halftime. One of our most famous Miss A&Ts, Margaret Tynes (1939-40), was honored during the halftime parade in the homecoming game against the Morgan State University Bears. The parade route has changed often, but is always within a few miles of the campus. Younger Aggies expect part of the route to be on the modern Lindsay Street. Other Aggies will recall standing in downtown Greensboro, and others in front of the former Hayes Taylor YMCA at the corner of Dudley and Market streets.
1947 Homecoming Parade – Ayantee 1948
Miss A&T is the “Queen of Homecoming” and “hostess for the A. and T. Homecoming game.” She was often the centerpiece of homecoming coverage within the Black press, sharing the spotlight with other historically Black college and university queens nationwide. For several of our queens like Tynes, Jessie Carney Smith, Ph.D., Joletta Patrick, Ph.D., and Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni Relations Crystal W. Boyce, this coverage was just the beginning of being spotlighted for even more renown achievement and scholarship. As fundraisers for the university, other queens at homecoming included “Miss Buildings and Grounds,” and “Miss A&T Alumna.”
The band has been the largest recruiter for A&T for more than a century and a must-see element of homecoming. While The Twin City Brass Band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, played in the 1927 and 1928 games, A&T’s own Blue and Gold Marching Machine has proudly performed at every homecoming game and parade ever since. The uniforms, showmanship and musical prowess grew under each director, but especially after Walter Carlson took the helm following World War II.
For growing crowds, multiple socials for alumni like the homecoming ball, bonfires, breakfasts, luncheons, dinners and services had their roots in the earlier decades. Older Aggies will remember feasts and luncheons inside the walls of Murphy Hall and even Coltrane Hall.
For generations, homecoming began with a pep rally or pre-dawn social and was concluded with the Sunday morning alumni worship service with a sermon by a featured alumnus. The sermons were given by many outstanding Aggies like Judge Elreta Alexander Melton in 1955. The worship service has been supplanted in recent decades by the gospel music show.
1956 CIAA Bulletin Ad for Homecoming Ball – Buddy and Ella Johnson
A big factor in homecoming is the inclusion and excitement of the Greensboro and Piedmont area communities. As early as 1929, it was announced in a Pittsburgh Courier article that “townsfolk have planned many social functions in connection with the season’s first big intersectional clash.” We in Bluford archives wish we knew what all those functions were, but this says that Greensboro citizens had actively planned festivities around homecoming since the beginning.
Just two years later in 1931, a story stated that “all of the alumni are expected” [at homecoming] and that “Many visitors from out of town will be here. Thousands of the ‘old faithful’ of the city will witness the tilt.” The ‘”old faithful” would have included many alumni as several more lived in Greensboro after graduation than today. It would have also included many future Aggies who grew up in the segregated East Greensboro neighborhoods and aspired to become an Aggie.
Past homecomings are a fantastic time capsule of our alumni. There are very few surviving records of our earliest students without yearbooks until 1939, and a huge loss of records from the 1930 Dudley Memorial Building fire. Much of what we know about the earliest Aggies comes from homecoming reunion stories. Class reunions for every fifth year began more than 70 years ago. The reunion leaders and attendees would make a “Who’s Who of Aggieland” list. Just using 1959 as an example: the 1949 reunion was led by historian and A&T professor Albert Westley Spruill. The five-year anniversary for the class of 1954 was led by teacher and future A&T Vice Chancellor Mrs. Shirley T. Frye, and the 15th anniversary of the class of 1934 was headed by Mr. Clarence I. Sawyer, who was class president in his senior year.
The dances, music, food, all socials and community pride have always provided a special remedy for Aggies on game day. Even if we lost the big game, the homecoming experience was always memorable. We lost the 1929 game against Bluefield College, but “Those Aggie Blues” were remedied by the homecoming ball with music provided by Smiling Billy Steward and His Celery City Serenaders. The ball was promoted as “biggest homecoming social in Aggie history” up to that time. The homecoming ball was the forerunner of the annual concerts that have attracted some to the biggest musical acts in history. Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra played here in 1964. Among the other notable mid-20th century notable acts were Bill Doggett and His Hammond Organ Group (1961), Dee Dee Warwick (1966), and The Delfonics and The O’Jays (1970).
1970 Homecoming – Pearl Brown, Ayantee 1971
The presence of our band, the crowning of Miss A&T and the enthusiasm of the crowds made our homecoming halftime shows unforgettable for generations. The halftime show was often the secret weapon for motivating our football team. At the 1940 game for instance, we won 6-0, scoring a single touchdown in the fourth quarter. Not the greatest score in Aggie history, but it was the first homecoming win since 1934. The momentum was credited to the “colorful pageantry” of the halftime show.
The color pageantry and success of homecoming is a result of planning and organization by generations of dedicated Aggies. Early celebrations were planned by a campus-wide “alumni homecoming committee” which is still active today as the University Homecoming Committee. In earlier decades, the committee was led by the campus “dean of men.” Notable among these leaders was Dean of Men and future Greensboro city councilman Jimmie I. Barber ’47, who chaired the committee for the 1959 events.
By the 1970s, homecoming had become too big for only the campus and World War Memorial Stadium. When Aretha Franklin came to Greensboro in 1971, her concert was one of the first of many homecoming events at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, now called First Horizon Coliseum. World War Memorial Stadium was beloved, but needed more seats, more bathrooms and better fields to accommodate all sports events. The Aggies who attended homecoming up until 1976 were fundraising and organizing for a bigger stadium and a larger N.C. A&T . Even with all their dreams and planning, they still could not have imagined how big the next 50 years of homecoming would be.
For more information about this story or to share your memories of the Greatest Homecoming on Earth, please email University Archives and Special Collections at libraryarchives@ncat.edu.
By James R. Stewart Jr. ’08, Archives and Special Collections Librarian
