Dr. Bobby Lovett

As part of the African American History program at LeMoyne-Owen College, on Wednesday, February 3, 2016, Dr. Bobby Lovett, Professor Emeritus at Tennessee State University will offer a lecture titled, “HBCUs: Hallowed Grounds of African American Education.”

The lecture will start at 11:00am and take place at Metropolitan Baptist Church located at 767 Walker Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Following the lecture, school officials will pay tribute to Lincoln Chapel, a school founded by the American Missionary Association during the Civil War and destroyed by rioters during the Memphis Massacre. The tribute will include a wreath-laying ceremony at the LeMoyne-Owen College Bell.

Dr. Lovett is an award-winning author, historian, speaker and retired professor of Afro-American history. Lovett was born in Memphis, Tennessee where he received his public school education and completed Booker T. Washington High School. He earned his B.A. at Arkansas A.M. & N State College (today’s University of Arkansas campus at Pine Bluff) and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He has taught history courses in the Memphis Public School System (1969-1970) and at Eureka College (1970-1973). Dr. Lovett was a senior professor at Tennessee State University (TSU) for 30 years until his retirement in 2010. He also served as the Dean of the TSU College of Arts and Sciences for more than 10 of those years.

His 2005 book, The Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: A Narrative History, won the “Tennessee History Book Award” by the Tennessee Library Association and Tennessee Historical Commission. Lovett’s articles have appeared in several history books, encyclopedias and scholarly journals. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Historical Society and Editorial Board of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dr. Femi Ajanaku at (901) 435-1427.