South Carolina State University

Front inscription

S.C. State University was founded in 1896 as the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural & Mechanical College of S.C., with its origins in the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 providing for land-grant colleges. Intended "for the best education of the hand, head and heart of South Carolina's young manhood and womanhood of the Negro race," it became S.C. State College in 1954 and S.C. State University in 1992.

Reverse inscription

South Carolina State has been called "at least symbolically, the most important educational institution in black Carolina since its founding." Students were also active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, taking part in sit-ins, the Orangeburg Movement of 1963-64 seeking desegregation of downtown businesses, and the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968.