Mobile, Alabama · Founded 1927 · Wildcats (women: Lady Wildcats)
“Mobile's historically Black community college — the only game in town for Black higher education in Mobile for decades, now a four-campus open-admission HBCU feeding the Gulf Coast workforce.”
The biggest basketball moment in school history on record — the Wildcats clinch the ACCC title and earn a trip to the NJCAA National Championship Tournament, drawing Northwest Florida State in the first round.
Full-game stream of a Wildcats non-conference men's basketball game played in Mobile — the school's athletics YouTube channel broadcasts games live and archived.
Full-game stream of the ACCC South rivalry game against Southern Union — one of the conference's recurring matchups.
ACCC men's basketball broadcast by JockJive Sports, the conference's streaming partner — Bishop State against Coastal Alabama North.
Wildcats men's basketball against Chipola — a cross-region Florida junior-college matchup showing the level Bishop State plays at.
Wallace State's broadcast of its game against Bishop State — the rivalry from the opponent's feed; Wallace State edged Bishop State in overtime for the 2024 ACCC title.
Archived game from the Gulf Coast Battleground Classic tournament hosted at Bishop State — the school has long hosted regional tournament basketball.
Highlight reel of a Bishop State baseball outfielder/pitcher — the Wildcats' Division II baseball program producing recruiting tape.
Midseason highlights of Jeremiah Sem, a 6'2 freshman guard at Bishop State (16.4 PPG), described by scouts as one of the best freshman in JUCO.
Bishop State Lady Wildcats softball against Coastal Alabama North — the softball program streams its ACCC games.
The college's livestreamed 2025 spring commencement — the school now broadcasts its graduations on YouTube.
The college's official overview video from its own YouTube channel, carried on the school's profile pages.
Bishop State alumna (associate degree) who became the school's president for 26 years, served in the Alabama House of Representatives 1979–2012, and was national president of Delta Sigma Theta 1988–1992.
Former nationally ranked track-and-field athlete who led a landmark lawsuit against whites-only scholarships at Alabama State University.
Mobile filmmaker, founder of Kamitte Filmz, director/rapper/spoken-word artist; co-founded the Kultiv8 youth program and won the Next Big Film Director Award; Mobile Bay 40 Under 40 class of 2026.
Bishop State graduate featured by The Century Foundation for completing a quality non-degree credential program as a working professional, opening new business opportunities.
Long-serving men's basketball coach (not an alum but a Mobile institution through the school) — 29 seasons, 300+ wins, two ACCC hall-of-fame-level honors.
In the summer of 1927 Bishop State was born as the Mobile Branch of Alabama State College (in Montgomery), under the presidency of Dr. Harper Councill Trenholm. It was created as an in-service arm offering summer extension courses to African-American elementary and secondary teachers in Mobile — at a time when the school was, in the words of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 'the only game in town for Blacks in Mobile who sought a college education.' For its first nine years it operated only in the summers as a teacher-training branch.
In September 1936 the branch became a full two-year college, ending the summers-only teacher-extension era. This was the moment the school took on a permanent collegiate identity rather than a satellite function. Two years later, a young Sanford D. Bishop joined the teaching staff as an instructor of English and music — the man whose name the school would one day carry — and by 1941 he had risen to dean.
The school acquired property on Broad Street — where the Main Campus still sits at 351 North Broad Street — a purchase bought with a loan that was later repaid by the students themselves through fundraisers. The campus consisted of a two-story framed building that had previously been used by the Voluntary Fire Fighters Society #11. It is one of the more human details in the school's history: the students literally bought their own college.
Under the 1947 Regional Trade School Act, what became the Southwest State Technical College opened in Mobile — the city provided 26 acres of land — as a vocational training school. It became the Southwest Campus when consolidated into Bishop State in 1991. Its first graduates, in 1954, were 15 members of a practical nursing program who had begun classes in January 1953, and the college officially opened in May 1954 with 100 students across eight programs.
The Alabama State Legislature chartered Carver State Technical College on January 1, 1961, and it was constructed in 1962 in the Toulminville area of Mobile as a vocational school for Black Mobilians. On November 19, 1976, the State Board of Education approved changing the name from Carver State Technical Trade School to Carver State Technical Institute, and later to Carver State Technical College. Like Southwest, it was consolidated into Bishop State in 1991 as the Carver Campus.
In 1963 the name 'Mobile Branch of Alabama State College' was changed to Alabama State College–Mobile Center, reflecting that the school had grown far beyond a summer teacher-training branch. Two years later the Alabama Legislature would ratify the Board's action establishing the school as an independent junior college, severing its relationship with Alabama State College in Montgomery after nearly four decades.
In 1965 the Alabama State Legislature ratified the Alabama State Board of Education's action making the school an independent junior college named Mobile State Junior College, severing its relationship with Alabama State College in Montgomery. Dr. Sanford D. Bishop — who had joined the faculty in 1938, become dean in 1941 — was appointed president of the new independent college. The school was finally its own institution, with a Mobile man at the helm.
In 1971 the Alabama State Legislature renamed the college S.D. Bishop State Junior College, honoring the president who had spent three decades building it from a branch into an independent school. The name has stuck ever since, through every subsequent renaming. Dr. Bishop died in office on June 21, 1981; Dr. Joseph Christopher Mitchell was selected to serve as interim president that summer.
In September 1981 Dr. Yvonne Kennedy became the second president of Bishop State — and one of the most consequential. She was an alumna of the school, holding an associate degree from Bishop State before going on to Alabama State (B.S.), Morgan State (M.A.), and a doctorate in higher education administration from Alabama State. She was already a national figure: elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in a 1979 special election, she would serve there until her death in 2012 and lead Delta Sigma Theta nationally from 1988 to 1992.
On February 23, 1989, the Alabama State Board of Education renamed the school Bishop State Community College to reflect its growth in vocational and career offerings, transfer programs, and community service. The two-year school was no longer just a junior college feeding four-year degrees — it was a comprehensive community college with health care and technology programs taking on a growing share of its identity. Under Kennedy, the college added campuses and expanded health care and technology offerings.
On August 22, 1991, the Alabama State Board of Education consolidated Southwest State Technical College and Carver State Technical College into Bishop State Community College, creating a four-campus institution serving Mobile and Washington counties. The merger gave Bishop State deep vocational and technical capacity overnight — practical nursing, automotive, welding, and the trades — alongside its academic transfer programs. The school's final name was settled.
In 1995 the college added an extension to the Main Campus with the opening of the Baker-Gaines Central site, the former historic Central High School. The facility houses the Division of Health Related Professions and includes a museum, child care center, 1,200-seat auditorium, multimedia center, and bookstore. It gave Bishop State a second major academic anchor and a real auditorium for graduations and community events.
The 2000s nearly killed the college. In 2003 reporting revealed that President Kennedy had sent her $94,000 in legislative discretionary funds to a Bishop State Community College Foundation she had created in 1993. In 2004 the college was placed on heightened cash monitoring by the U.S. Department of Education over financial aid fraud — including a 67-year-old disabled grandmother awarded an athletic scholarship — and ordered to repay $150,000 in Pell Grants. That December the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed Bishop State on probation, citing failures in financial and academic areas, and extended the probation six more months in 2007. Twenty-seven people associated with the college, including former students and employees, were charged with stealing more than $200,000 in financial aid and athletic funds. About 80 percent of the school's 3,600 students received federal aid, so accreditation loss would have been a death sentence.
Under pressure from the extended SACS probation and the State Board of Education, Dr. Kennedy resigned on July 30, 2007, ending a 26-year presidency. Chancellor Bradley Byrne had called Bishop State 'the biggest problem in the state.' Dr. James Lowe Jr., vice chancellor for college operations, became interim president on August 1, 2007, and led a recovery team dubbed 'Project Phoenix' — immediately sending letters informing 13 employees of the school's intent to fire them in the wake of the theft charges. On May 22, 2008, the State Board appointed Lowe president. The college survived, though the scandal years left deep scars.
President James Lowe Jr. died on February 18, 2015. Dr. Ulysses McBride was appointed interim president on March 10, 2015; on August 27, 2015, Dr. Valerie Richardson became interim president, and that October she was named president. The churn was just beginning — the Mobile City Council would later describe a 'yo-yo system' of leadership. In February 2016 Dr. Reginald Sykes, president of Alabama Southern Community College since 2010, became interim president of Bishop State and was named president that year, serving into the early 2020s. He shepherded the school's biggest construction program in decades while navigating the same revolving-door scrutiny.
In late July 2020 Bishop State broke ground on its two biggest projects in over a decade: a $17 million Advanced Manufacturing Center (80,000 square feet of technology-rich space for robotics, process technology, electronics engineering, and industrial maintenance) and a $4 million renovation of the existing library into a state-of-the-art Health Sciences Center with nursing simulation suites and physical therapy teaching labs. In February 2021 the Mobile County Commission approved $350,000 toward the two projects — $250,000 for naming rights to the Advanced Manufacturing Center lecture hall and $100,000 for the Health Sciences Facility's nursing simulation suite. The Health Sciences Facility opened in fall 2021; the Advanced Manufacturing Center in spring 2022.
On July 13, 2022, the Alabama Community College System Board of Trustees appointed Olivier Charles — the system's vice chancellor for student success — as president, effective August 1. He was the fourth person to hold the job in seven years, an appointment that came a day after the Mobile City Council demanded more transparency in presidential retention. Charles, raised in Mobile's Campground neighborhood, said: 'This is my dream job, and I intend to retire at Bishop State. We are a proud historically Black community college, and we will always be. I am committed to making Bishop State not just the best HBCU in Alabama but the best community college in Alabama, period.' The school enrolled just under 2,200 students at the time, about 57 percent African American.
In February 2025 Bishop State signed a memorandum of understanding with Tuskegee University — an HBCU-to-HBCU partnership reported by WKRG — linking Mobile's two-year historically Black community college with the historic Tuskegee institution. It is the kind of pipeline deal that fits Bishop State's modern role: an open-admission, urban HBCU feeding the Gulf Coast's workforce and its four-year partners. The same year the college livestreamed its spring commencement on YouTube, showing a school that has settled into steady, public-facing operation after decades of turbulence.
Wallace State is the measuring stick in the ACCC. In March 2024 the Lions beat top-ranked Bishop State 85-81 in overtime to win the ACCC Division I men's championship — the kind of title-game loss that feeds a rivalry. Wallace State has also knocked Bishop State out of Region 22 tournament play (e.g., a 69-45 quarterfinal win in 2014). The schools meet as perennial contenders, with the Wildcats hosting games on YouTube's BishopStateWildcatsAthletics channel.
Southern Union and Bishop State have traded ACCC South basketball battles for years — Southern Union held on for a 77-68 home win in 2005 after the Wildcats cut a 22-point lead, and the Bison have repeatedly stood between Bishop State and conference position. Full-game streams of Bishop State vs. Southern Union circulate on the athletics YouTube channel.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
No Greek-letter organizations; no Divine Nine chapter at Bishop State Community College appears on any of the nine national chapter rosters (all nine checked). Greek ties here run through the school's leaders rather than chapter rosters: President Olivier Charles is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha (per his public bio), and President Yvonne Kennedy was a Delta Sigma Theta member from her Alabama State days in 1964 who served as the sorority's national president from 1988 to 1992 — one of the most prominent Greek-leadership legacies of any HBCU president.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
Property acquired on Broad Street where the Main Campus stands today — 14 buildings on 15 acres at 351 North Broad Street. Bought with a loan repaid by students through fundraisers; the first campus building was a two-story frame structure formerly used by Voluntary Fire Fighters Society #11.
Chartered by the Alabama Legislature on January 1, 1961, and constructed in 1962 in Toulminville — 9 acres, six buildings. Became the Carver Campus in the 1991 consolidation.
Under the 1947 Regional Trade School Act, the school that became the Southwest Campus opened on 26 acres provided by the City of Mobile at 925 Dauphin Island Parkway — seven buildings on 42 acres. Officially opened May 1954 with 100 students in eight programs.
Former historic Central High School converted into the college's health-professions hub: Division of Health Related Professions, a museum, child care center, 1,200-seat auditorium, multimedia center, and bookstore. Still the home of the nursing and allied-health programs.
Broke ground late July 2020 on the $17 million, 80,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center — technology-rich training space for robotics, process technology, electronics engineering technology, and industrial maintenance, aimed at Mobile-area workforce demand. First major construction on the Main Campus in well over a decade; completed spring 2022.
A $4 million renovation transforming the existing library building into a state-of-the-art Health Sciences Center with nursing simulation suites and physical therapy teaching labs. Opened fall 2021.
The Mobile County Commission approved $350,000 toward the two 2020 projects — $250,000 for naming rights to the Advanced Manufacturing Center lecture hall and $100,000 for the Health Sciences Facility nursing simulation suite — public money backing the school's workforce mission.
The Health Sciences Facility's 1,150-square-foot nursing simulation site and the Advanced Manufacturing Center's process-technology and robotics labs are the school's modern core: Bishop State now trains nurses and industrial technicians in simulation-rich space, a long way from the two-story frame building the students bought in 1942.
Bishop State's staff identity is athletics-heavy: the Wildcats' basketball programs are the public face of the school, and coaches like Shelwood are Mobile institutions in their own right.
Succeeded Johnny Shelwood after the 2021 season; runs the Bishop State Wildcats athletics program and coaches the men's basketball team.
Coached the Wildcats for 29 seasons after a 26-year career at Toulminville (LeFlore) High School; amassed over 300 collegiate wins, was named Alabama Junior College Coach of the Year (1993) and ACCC Southern Division Coach of the Year (1996, 2016), and was inducted into the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame (2016) and the ACCC Hall of Fame (2018).
President since August 1, 2022; Alpha Phi Alpha member, doctoral student in higher education leadership, and the school's first president from Mobile's own Campground neighborhood.
Bishop State assistant coach and co-founder of BAMAMIXTAPE, Alabama's prominent basketball scouting service — part of the school's recruiting pipeline identity.
Bishop State feels like a working city's college: open admission, four campuses across Mobile and Washington counties, a student body that is majority Black, and a heavy lean toward programs that lead straight to jobs — nursing, process technology, robotics, CDL driving. There is no dorm-party scene; the energy is on the court and in the simulation labs. Mobile's Mardi Gras and Gulf Coast culture surround the school, and athletics — especially the basketball doubleheaders — are the main communal ritual.