Planning, Persistence, and Pedagogy: How Elizabeth City State Colored Normal School Survived North Carolina’s White Supremacy Campaign, 1898–1905

Frederick Douglass said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Although this great man never visited Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the rural home of the historically Black Elizabeth City State University, his words ring true as if he had had a firsthand experience of this school’s history of resilience. Chartered as Elizabeth City State Colored Normal School in the late nineteenth century in Pasquotank County, Elizabeth City State University is now a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system, offering twenty-eight baccalaureate and four master’s programs, including signature programs in aviation science and unmanned aircraft systems