Documenting Fayetteville State University’s Place In History

Fayetteville, N.C. (October 12, 2022) — Francena Turner, Ph.D., adjunct lecturer of history at Fayetteville State University (FSU) and FSU alumna, recently published an essay highlighting the university’s participation in the Black Campus Movement in the late 1960s into the early 1970s.

Turner’s article, “Movements Come and Go and are Soon Forgotten: The Black Campus Movement at Fayetteville State, 1966-1972,” documents FSU’s participation in the movement, adding to the field of study which tends to focus on larger institutions.

“As I studied the role of Black women in history, it seemed that history was always somewhere else, in someone else’s hometown, and at someone else’s HBCU,” Turner said. “I wanted to write about my hometown and my HBCU. It mattered that FSU students helped shape education policy and culture on campus, but also that they had and continue to have an impact on the Fayetteville community as well.”

"FSU has a rich history, and it's one our students from the past, present and future can be proud of," said Marcus Cox, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at FSU. " I am proud to have Dr. Turner as an FSU alumna and faculty member who puts a spotlight on that history."

The essay can be found in the “(Re)Framing the Beautiful Struggle: Black Students & Black Youth Activism” special issue of Zanj: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies.

Turner teaches African American History in FSU’s Department of Intelligence Studies, Geospatial Science, Political Science and History (IGPH). Her research focuses on histories of Black education across the lifespan, Black women’s higher education and career trajectories, FSU, Black digital humanities, and qualitative research methods.