Chapter 3: James Edward Shepard and North Carolina Central University: In Service to the State

The visionary leadership of Dr. James Edward Shepard, founder and president of the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua (now North Carolina Central University-NCCU), from 1910 until his death in 1947 (NCCU, 2010a; NCCU, 2010b; Davis, 2010), is the embodiment of racial uplift and collective advancement.

A native North Carolinian, Shepard was born the eldest of 12 in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 3, 1875 to Hattie Whitted Shepard and Reverend Dr. Augustus Shepard. Shepard’s parents were very active in the church and the Freedmen’s Bureau (Davis, 2010; Suggs, 2009). Shepard’s father, known and respected within the Durham community, graduated from Shaw University’s Theological Department in 1880 and was pastor of White Rock Baptist Church located just down the road from the site where North Carolina Central University (NCCU) would be erected in 1910 (NCCU, 2010a; NCCU, 2010b) . Augustus Shepard was born in 1846 in Raleigh to Richard and Flora Shepard—both enslaved and whose owner was one-time North Carolina Governor, Charles Manly (NCCU, 2010b). Shepard was particularly close to his mother, who “received her early training at Hampton Institute in Virginia” (NCCU, 2010a, p. 4) and was a former schoolteacher who tutored him as a young boy. Mrs. Shepard shared his vision of becoming a great leader and spokesperson for his race. Mays’ relationship with his mother was “one in which she maintained a strong influence on his life and education” because she was “rooted in the ministry and encouraged her son’s spirituality and sense of integrity” (as cited in Suggs, 2009, p. 97). His father, who was formerly enslaved, was also instrumental in Shepard’s college attendance as well as shaping his career. Shepard, like his father, was also a Baptist minister and one could make the assumption that the senior Augustus Shepard was a precursor to his son’s desire to train ministers in his latter years. In many ways, Shepard followed in his father’s footsteps and was skillful at positioning himself to build his own following and network of ministers—both Black and White—to help him start his training school (Davis, 2010; Suggs, 2009).