TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — James Dumas remembers standing outside the Stillman College library in the late 1970s, watching a campus he loved take shape around him. He never left. Four and a half decades later, he still reports to work at that same library, where he served his work-study hours as an undergraduate. His wife is a Stillman graduate. Both of his daughters are Stillman graduates. His daughter Nicole went on to earn a doctorate.
Dr. Yolanda W. PageAll photos courtesy of Stillman College
That loyalty — stubborn, abiding, multigenerational — is perhaps the most fitting emblem of what Stillman College has been for 150 years. Founded in 1876 by the Rev. Charles Allen Stillman, a white Presbyterian minister who defied the violent racial order of Reconstruction-era Alabama to establish an institution for Black men aspiring to the ministry, the college has since grown into a four-year liberal arts HBCU serving students from across the country. This year, it marks its sesquicentennial, a milestone that feels, to those gathered on its campus, like both a celebration and a calling.
A Foundation Built on Audacity
To understand what Stillman is today, it helps to understand what the Rev. Stillman was up against in 1876. The Civil War had ended barely a decade earlier. Reconstruction was unraveling under the weight of white supremacist violence. And yet, Stillman raised money, opened a school, and stood by it — even as he faced threats for his association with and advocacy on behalf of Black Alabamians.
"He was not a loved individual because of his mission," said the Rev. Dr. Joseph Scrivner, who has served as Stillman's Dean of Chapel for 13 years. "He was being targeted as someone who loved African Americans. But he just went through that because of a higher mission."
The proximity between the college and the church is no accident. Presbyterians, Scriber explained, have always believed in educated ministers. If African Americans were to have their own congregations after segregation fractured mixed-race worship, they needed trained clergy. That conviction became a school. The school became a college. And the college became, for generation after generation of Black Alabamians and beyond, a portal into a life they might otherwise never have accessed.
That founding vision remains alive in surprising ways. The Stillman family has maintained a relationship with the institution for all 150 years — a connection that is exceedingly rare in American higher education. In 2024—several months before his death— Dr. Charles M. Stillman — the great-grandson of the Rev. Charles Allen Stillman — and his wife Susan recently made a $2 million donation to the college, directed toward scholarships, faculty development, academic programs, and campus improvements. Dr. Stillman, who died in February 2025 after a long battle withT-cell lymphoma, served for years as a member of Stillman's Board of Trustees, including two terms as chairman of the board.
The Royal Court at Stillman College
"Stillman College represents the ideals and aspirations my great-grandfather envisioned when he founded this institution nearly 150 years ago," Dr. Charles M. Stillman said at the time. "My wife and I are honored to play a role in securing its future and ensuring that generations of students continue to benefit from the transformative power of a Stillman education."
The family is reportedly planning a reunion on campus during this anniversary year, and Dr. Stillman's wife continues to be actively involved with the college.
"Schools don't have that," said Mason Bonner, director of community engagement who first joined Stillman's staff in 1983 and returned again in 2011 after a stint away. “That connection with the founding family — to still be invested after all of these years — that's remarkable.”
Bloody Tuesday and the Marching Students
Inside the college’s art gallery, black-and-white photographs line the walls. They depict scenes from what locals call Bloody Tuesday — a violent episode in Tuscaloosa's Civil Rights history when protesters marching toward the courthouse were set upon by local police. Among those involved were members of First Presbyterian Church and students from Stillman.
The Stillman Choir
Two Stillman faculty members — identified in the images — marched and were jailed. The Rev. Thomas Linton, a Stillman-affiliated figure, worked under the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. First African Baptist Church, just around the corner, opened its doors for the movement; Dr. King himself spoke there.
Scrivner paused before one of the photographs.
"I love this history," he said. "Because you're talking about a time when Stillman's supporters were being targeted for loving African Americans. And the stories I've heard — he was threatened, things of that nature — but he just went through it for a higher mission."
That legacy of engagement, Scrivner said, is what he tries to pass on in his religion courses. He asks students to situate themselves historically — to consider what position they would have taken on slavery in 1840, on segregation in 1955, on women in ministry in 1970. Only then, he tells them, can they understand how to think about the contested moral questions of today.
"You need to know this history before you just jump in," he teaches them.
A President with a Vision and a Plan
Dr. Yolanda W. Page became Stillman's president knowing she was inheriting not just an institution but a sacred story.
Dr. Yolanda W. Page
"This moment is one where we really, as an institution, do two things," she said. "One, we pay homage to our past — to the legacy built over the last 150 years by the seven presidents before me, and to the vision that Reverend Charles Allen Stillman had in 1876 when the school first opened its doors: to provide access to those who may not otherwise have access. And then we connect that past to our present and look forward to our future."
That future is taking visible shape on campus. Stillman recently introduced its first new undergraduate program since the COVID-19 pandemic: a sport management program that has generated significant interest among prospective male students. The college has also announced the addition of women's flag football, marking another expansion of its athletic offerings. And a cohort of students was selected for the Anchor Tuscaloosa program, a partnership designed to encourage graduates to put down roots in the city after commencement.
"Although we're small, we're doing a lot of big and wonderful things," said Page who has led the storied institution since 2023. "We're showing that we can be a partner to the community, to the city, to the region, and to the state."
On a recent afternoon, she described three separate conversations she had just finished with students: one young man seeking a summer internship to save money before his senior year; another interested in a career with the FBI; a third exploring a path into physical therapy. Each, she said, represents the kind of aspiration that Stillman exists to nurture.
"We're looking for connections," she said, "from individuals who may be Stillman graduates, but also from individuals who simply have a heart for students at a small liberal arts institution."
A Dream Becomes a Building
Earlier this week, the Stillman campus hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony that signaled something new: the completion of the first building for I Dream Big Academy, Alabama's first HBCU-based charter school, now permanently housed on Stillman's grounds.
"It's a culmination of four years of work to finally see a dream come to reality," said Dr. Angela Lang, co-founder and executive director of I Dream Big Academy. "There's actually a building that represents all of the hard work that our team put into and the representation of parents who still enrolled their children before we had a building."
Construction delays had pushed back the building's completion past the start of the fall semester, meaning students spent the early months of the school year attending classes in rooms borrowed from Stillman College. But that sacrifice, parents said, was one they made knowingly and without regret.
I Dream Big Academy currently serves 157 students in sixth through eighth grade. Its next phase will add a second building to accommodate ninth graders, deepening the pipeline from middle school through high school on the same HBCU campus — a model that Page describes as central to Stillman's vision for educational partnership.
The school is backed by serious philanthropic muscle. Bloomberg Philanthropies and City Fund jointly committed $20 million — $10 million each — to support HBCU-charter school partnerships nationwide, with I Dream Big Academy at Stillman representing one of the initiative's flagship models. The investment reflects a long-standing commitment to HBCUs and a belief that connecting K-12 education to HBCU campuses can create transformative pipelines for students in underserved communities.
If the ribbon cutting offered a glimpse of Stillman's future, a Thursday night men's and women's basketball doubleheader against Fisk University in January, offered something rarer: a reminder of what a small HBCU campus feels like when it is fully, electrically alive.
The gymnasium was packed. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members filled the bleachers shoulder to shoulder, voices rising with each possession. The atmosphere crackled with the kind of energy that no strategic plan can manufacture — the organic, unscripted joy of a community gathered around something it loves. Both games were electrifying, the kind of contested, hard-fought basketball that reminds you why HBCU athletic rivalries carry weight far beyond the final score.
It was, in microcosm, exactly what Stillman's stakeholders describe when they talk about what makes this place different: the sense that everyone in the building knows each other, that something real is at stake, and that showing up matters.
The Enrollment Challenge
The institution that Bonner returned to in 2011 was smaller than the one he left in 2003. During his tenure in admissions, enrollment had grown from 561 students to more than 1,500, fueled in part by the restoration of the football program in 1999 — a development that brought enormous joy to alumni who remembered Stillman's original football program from the 1950s.
Today, enrollment hovers near 700. The goalis to reach 1,000 students by 2030 as part of the college's Ascend 2030 strategic plan.
Bonner, who now works part-time on admissions strategy, has developed relationships with more than 175 community colleges — including 118 in California, 24 in Mississippi, 22 in Alabama, and nine in Chicago — as pathways for transfer students. He is focused on promoting four online programs: religion and theology, business administration, criminal justice, and psychology. And he has zeroed in on a California incentive that provides $5,000 scholarships to community college students who transfer to an HBCU.
"Schools that have transfer students have an easier time retaining those students," he said. "I'd like to see the college grow to about 1,500 by 2033. But our sweet spot — where we'd be happy — is at least 1,000."
Pat Robinson, president of the National Alumni Association and a member of the Class of 1978, came of age at Stillman when T.R. Collins, a beloved campus figure, used to walk around with a cigar in his mouth urging students to think about paying their way through school. Robinson didn't have student loans — she had scholarships and support from local churches — and didn't fully understand the financial pressures that Collins was trying to convey.
But she understood community.
"When I was here, Stillman was like a family," she said. "You knew everybody. You knew the professors, you knew the administration. And if you came on our campus, we knew who you were."
Robinson left that fishbowl and encountered the cold reality of a world that had not coddled her. She came back to give back. Now her challenge is convincing younger alumni to do the same. She gives graduates 18 months of free alumni association membership to lower the barrier to entry. She is developing tiered giving programs tied to Stillman's founding year — $18 a month, $87.60 a month, each amount carrying symbolic meaning.
“Give up three Starbucks and you've got your $18," she said with a laugh. "And the most important thing is, it's not always what you know, it's who knows you. And Stillman is who knows you.”
For all the energy on campus, there is an underlying reality that the people who love Stillman do not shy away from naming: the buildings are old, many contain asbestos, and the cost of remediation before renovation is staggering. King Hall and Williams Hall — two residence halls that together once housed 280 students in 140 rooms each — have been offline and restoring them would require navigating both the physical hazards and the financial burden of a school that, like most HBCUs, has spent generations doing more with less.
"It's not just a renovation of a building," Bonner said. "It's like building from the ground up. You have to remediate the asbestos first and that's a cost of its own. That's humongous."
The alumni and administration speak openly about the kind of transformative philanthropic gift that has reshaped other HBCUs in recent years — the MacKenzie Scott model, as they sometimes call it. A single major gift, they believe, could fundamentally alter the institution's trajectory, modernizing classrooms, restoring dormitories, and reducing the structural fragility that has long constrained HBCU ambitions.
"Resources, of course, are always a major issue," Page said. "But it's also about time and talent. We need mentors. We need internship connections. We need individuals who have a heart for what we're doing here."
Among Page's priorities: modernizing classrooms with up-to-date technology, infusing artificial intelligence across both the curriculum and administrative operations, and continuing to build the kind of community partnerships — with Tuscaloosa businesses, regional employers, and national nonprofits — that make a small college feel like a gateway to a large world.
Dyonte Herron, a junior business major with a concentration in supply chain management from Columbus, Georgia, had never heard of Stillman College before his high school band director — a Stillman alumnus — brought him to campus in October 2022. He arrived a few months later as a first-year student. He came alone, without knowing anyone.
"I was pretty much an introvert when I first got here," he said. "I wasn't really talking or anything. But I had students who were in royal positions before me who would come and be like, 'Hey, we're having this event, come through.' It was family oriented. It was just nice to have people force you to have fun."
Now he is Mr. Stillman College, and a member of the Campus Activity Board. His job, as he describes it, is straightforward: to be a bridge. To know who needs what. To make sure no student falls through the cracks.
Asked what the 150th anniversary means to him, he paused before answering. "It's an honor just to be here at this moment," he said, "especially being able to hear the alumni tell their different stories of how Stillman evolved — in their very own eyes."
The Foundation that Holds
On his way out of the library one afternoon, James Dumas paused and looked around the building where he has spent more than four decades of his professional life. He started to think about why Stillman had survived — through the financial crises, the enrollment fluctuations, the social upheavals — and he landed on something that sounded less like an explanation than a testimony.
"The Lord said, upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," he said quietly. "He didn't say there wouldn't be problems. We've had our share of problems. But because of the foundation she was built on, that's why she's still here. And she will be here when I'm gone."
