Birmingham, Alabama and Bessemer, Alabama · Founded 1949 · Cougars
“Birmingham's HBCU community college — 200 programs, 2 campuses, 1 family”
The White House's official video of Obama's March 26, 2015 remarks to ~1,800 people at Lawson State — the most famous day in school history, ties directly to the 2015 history entry.
Viral-style short running down Lawson State's programs — robotics, nursing, culinary, cosmetology, barbering — and plugging Cougar Fest, a good snapshot of how the school markets itself.
Lecture-recital documenting Bessie Hunter-Shelton, Music and Humanities instructor and Director of the LSCC Jazz Band — the verified face of the college's music program. Ties to the band section.
Full-game footage of the Wallace State–Lawson State ACCC North rivalry on March 5, 2026 — the rivalry entry in motion.
NJCAA men's basketball action: Lawson State hosting Northwest Mississippi CC on January 5, 2026 — the Cougars on the national JUCO stage.
Enterprise State's channel carrying an ESCC vs Lawson State men's basketball game — another ACCC conference matchup on film.
Streamed Lawson State basketball game against Alabama Tech — the kind of weeknight conference basketball that is the school's athletic lifeblood.
The school's official spring 2026 graduation ceremony — the payoff moment the whole mission is built around.
Official fall 2025 commencement — Lawson State graduates classes twice a year, and both ceremonies go on the record.
Official spring 2025 commencement ceremony from the college's channel.
Official fall 2024 commencement — the college archives every graduation on YouTube.
Official fall 2022 commencement ceremony.
Professional basketball player; averaged 14.5 points and 13 rebounds per game at Lawson State before signing with Arkansas in 2012, then played professionally including an NBA Summer League title run.
Professional basketball player who went from Lawson State to Alabama A&M and reached the NBA in 2012.
Former NBA player who suited up for the Phoenix Suns in the 1980s.
Major League Baseball player who came up through Lawson State.
Professional basketball player who starred for the Cougars in the early 2000s and went on to play overseas.
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.
Director of Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham.
Postal supervisor, Army sergeant, and member of the Birmingham Board of Education.
Case manager for Birmingham Municipal Court and president of the Five Points West neighborhood.
Bessemer City Council member.
Birmingham City Council member.
Police officer.
Alabama state senator.
Former Alabama House of Representatives member.
In the 1947 Alabama Legislature, George Corley Wallace and John Patterson co-sponsored the Wallace Trade and Vocational School Act, authorizing a state system of trade schools. That law became the legal foundation for a new Black trade school in Jefferson County's Wenonah community. Alabama's industrial economy ran on Black labor while reserving skilled-trade training for whites; the Act carved a narrow, segregated opening. Two years later, that opening became a school.
On August 24, 1949, the Wenonah Vocational and Trade School opened as part of the Jefferson County Schools system, open only to African Americans. Seventy-five students enrolled that first year, taught by eleven instructors led by Theodore Lawson — the first African-American director of a state vocational trade school in Alabama. The school sat in the Wenonah area, a Black neighborhood near Birmingham's industrial corridor, giving Black students a first local path into competitive industrial occupations. Birmingham News writer Clarence Daigle covered it in 1950 under the headline 'This Is What A Democracy Does,' one of the earliest public records of the institution's existence.
The 1963 Alabama Legislature passed legislation permitting an academic junior-college division alongside the trade school. The trade school had proven the demand for Black postsecondary education in the Birmingham area; a credit-bearing academic program would answer it. The same year, a statewide tax created Alabama's technical college system — the seed of the future Bessemer campus. Planning began for what would become Wenonah State Junior College.
The academic program opened in 1965 as Wenonah State Junior College, with Theodore Lawson remaining president of the whole operation. Charles H. McCauley Associates was commissioned to design a new 88,062-square-foot building for 1,200 students on a 25-acre site; Robins Engineering won the $1,216,896 construction contract. McCauley's design earned a Merit Award from the Alabama Council of Architects. It was an unusually ambitious building for a Black junior college in 1960s Alabama.
On April 4, 1966, the State Vocational-Technical School in Bessemer accepted its first 47 day and 30 night students in six programs of study, on a 34-acre site the city of Bessemer had purchased and deeded to the state. It opened as the John R. Pelham Technical-Trade School, named for the Civil War hero; on August 16, 1966, legislative action renamed it Bessemer State Technical Institute. It was accredited in 1972 and achieved college status in 1973, able to award the Associate in Applied Technology degree. Bessemer would grow into Alabama's largest technical college — and Lawson State's future second campus.
Wenonah State Junior College graduated its first class of 33 students in 1967. For a school built to train Black tradesmen, those first diplomas marked a second mission fulfilled: transfer-ready academic degrees alongside the trade programs. Small as the class was, it proved the model worked. The junior college now had alumni.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accredited the junior college in 1968 — the stamp that made its credits transferable and its degrees legitimate statewide. In segregated Alabama, accreditation was never automatic for a Black school; earning it within three years of the first class was a statement. It locked in the school's academic future and made the 1969 renaming possible.
On August 12, 1969, Wenonah State Junior College was renamed Lawson State Junior College in honor of its founding president, Theodore A. Lawson. Lawson had run the school since 1949 — two decades taking it from a segregated trade school to an accredited college. Naming a school for a living Black educator was itself rare in Alabama at the time. The name stuck through every change that followed.
Dr. Leon Kennedy became the college's second president in 1971, succeeding the founder. He inherited both the junior college and the technical school as a changing state system pushed two-year schools toward consolidation. His tenure would carry the school through its most important structural change yet. Little public detail on his administration survives in sources checked.
On October 1, 1973, the technical school and the junior college merged into a single institution: Lawson State Community College. The consolidation ended the split personality — one president, one college, academic and technical programs under one roof. The merged school carried the Lawson name and the community-college mission forward together.
The men's basketball team played its way into the NJCAA record book at the 1977 national tournament, piling up 526 points across five games — the NJCAA record for five-game tournament scoring. They also dropped 137 points on North Greenville College of South Carolina in a single tournament game, another record. Nearly fifty years later, the NJCAA men's basketball record book still carries Lawson State's name. It remains the program's loudest national basketball statement.
Dr. Jesse J. Lewis took the presidency in 1978, leading the consolidated college through the 1980s. His decade-long tenure bridged the Kennedy and Ward eras as the merged institution settled into its community-college identity. No detailed public record of his administration surfaced in sources checked — a gap in an otherwise documented institutional history.
Dr. Perry W. Ward became president on June 12, 1987, and would hold the office for 33 years — the defining presidency in the school's history. Enrollment was under 1,000 when he arrived. Over three decades he rebuilt the physical plant, absorbed the Bessemer campus, chased national recognition, and made the nursing program one of Alabama's best. By the time he left, Lawson State was a top-5 community college in America.
In January 2005, Chancellor Roy Johnson proposed merging Lawson State and Bessemer State Technical College — about ten miles apart — estimating $1 million in annual savings; both campuses would stay open, with personnel trimmed through retirements. The State Board of Education and SACS approved the merger in June 2005, and on July 1, 2005, Bessemer Tech became LSCC's Bessemer Campus. Bessemer president Dr. Michael Bailey moved to the Alabama Technology Network; Perry Ward stayed president of the combined college. Overnight, Lawson State became a two-campus institution spanning Birmingham and Bessemer.
The school's founder and namesake, Dr. Theodore Alfred Lawson, died July 21, 2005, at 98. He had run the school from 1949 to 1971 and lived to see it named for him, the 1973 merger, and the Bessemer expansion. Miles College had awarded him an honorary doctorate, and he was a trustee of Metropolitan AME Zion Church. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham.
The Obama administration named Lawson State a 'Champion of Change' in 2011, honoring its work training workers for its community. For a two-year HBCU in southwest Birmingham, the national recognition validated Ward's two-decade rebuild. It put the school on the national map well beyond Alabama. Two years later came the ranking that sealed it.
In May 2012 the college purchased the site of the former Wenonah Elementary School for expansion. Starting the same year, Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts auditors flagged serious problems with the school's financial practices — especially its handling of federal financial-aid funds, plus surplus-property sales routed to employees at nominal cost. The college didn't dispute the findings but struggled for years to implement fixes. The episode shadows an otherwise strong decade.
Washington Monthly ranked Lawson State the #5 community college in the nation in 2013. The ranking measured what community colleges are actually for — access, affordability, outcomes — and Lawson State beat nearly every two-year school in the country. Ward compared the nursing program's run to 'winning the national championship': among Alabama's 42 nursing programs, Lawson State's was recognized #1 in 2018, with years when every graduate passed the NCLEX. The school's reputation peaked.
In 2014 Lawson State was announced as leader of a four-year, $10 million federally funded transportation-industry training effort across four states. The grant recognized the technical division's strength — the direct descendant of the 1949 trade school. Workforce training had come full circle as the school's national calling card.
On March 26, 2015, President Barack Obama delivered remarks on the economy at Lawson State before about 1,800 people, pushing new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules against abusive payday lending. He hosted an economic roundtable on campus and praised the school from the podium; Ward got an hour with the president afterward. Of all the community colleges in America, Obama chose Lawson State. It was the single most famous day in the school's history.
The Lady Cougars beat Wallace State 66-50 in the ACCC/Region 22 tournament title game in Bay Minette — the program's first conference championship, and the first women's title won by anyone besides Wallace State or Shelton State since 2005. Tournament MVP Kara Rawls had 14 points and 21 rebounds; Ashley McCrear added 20. The win capped a 24-9 season and a program breakthrough. Two months earlier the same Wallace State team had beaten Lawson State on a buzzer-beater — the title game was payback.
After 33 years, Perry W. Ward retired August 31, 2020; Dr. Cynthia T. Anthony became interim president the same day. Enrollment had grown from under 1,000 to over 5,000 under Ward, with students arriving from Florida, Texas, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico, transferring on to UAB, Miles, Samford, Tuskegee, and Auburn. The transition ended the longest presidency in school history — and one of the longest at any Alabama college.
On April 1, 2021, Dr. Cynthia T. Anthony was named president after seven months as interim. She inherited a college navigating COVID-era enrollment, lingering audit findings, and Ward's outsized legacy. Her administration's early years focused on stabilization and long-deferred facility renewal.
In 2022 Lawson State won $4.2 million in U.S. Department of Labor YouthBuild funding with the Birmingham and Bessemer housing authorities and Cornerstone Schools for pre-apprentice training in construction, healthcare, and warehouse operations. The college spent remaining HEERF II-HBCU and American Rescue Plan dollars on HVAC upgrades across both campuses and won U.S. Department of Education approval for major renovations to four instructional buildings more than fifty years old. On April 19, 2023, the ACCS board approved a new mission statement centered on student success. The campus was finally getting the capital it had long been denied.
In summer 2026 the college solicited bids to demolish Building H and the aging residence hall on the Birmingham campus — clearing ground for the next chapter. On September 29, 2026, the Floor Covering Education Foundation cut the ribbon on a Birmingham training center serving Lawson State and Jefferson State students through Alabama's Skills for Success initiative. The school's own YouTube channel documented a full 2026: Cougar Fest, NC3 Signing Day, a STEM White Coat Ceremony, Honors and Awards Day, and spring commencement. Seventy-seven years after 75 students showed up for trade classes, the pipeline keeps filling.
The ACCC North Division basketball rivalry that defines both programs' seasons. The 2014–15 trilogy is the stuff of conference lore: on January 30, 2015, Wallace State's Haven Albright hit a 3-pointer with 0.5 seconds left to steal a 65-64 win at Tom Drake Coliseum, and the Lions also took an overtime thriller 66-64. Lawson State answered where it mattered — beating Wallace State 66-50 in the ACCC/Region 22 tournament title game in Bay Minette for the Lady Cougars' first conference championship, the first women's title won by anyone besides Wallace State or Shelton State since 2005. The rivalry still produces streamed classics, including a March 5, 2026 meeting. Bishop State of Mobile is the other long-standing ACCC foe, with regular conference doubleheaders against the Cougars.
🥁 LSCC Jazz Band
Lawson State is not a marching-band school in the classic HBCU sense — its verified music program is the LSCC Jazz Band under Bessie Hunter-Shelton. Peterson's student-activities listing credits the college with a marching band and choral groups, and campus tradition includes an annual Christmas Musical, but no marching band director, roster, or performance records surfaced in the sources checked, so the marching claim is treated as unverified. On game days the spirit work belongs to the cheer squad and the Golden Essence dance team.
Music and Humanities instructor and Director of the LSCC Jazz Band; Tuskegee native with a B.A. in English from Tuskegee, a B.M. in Voice from the University of Michigan, an M.M. in Voice from the University of Montevallo, and doctoral music studies underway. Also a choir soloist at Canaan Baptist Church of Bessemer.
Peterson's lists Greek fraternities and sororities as present on campus, and the most popular organizations are the Student Government Association, Phi Theta Kappa, Kappa Beta Delta Honor Society, Phi Beta Lambda, and the Social Work Club. No Divine Nine chapter charters at Lawson State could be verified in the sources checked, so specific NPHC chapter history is marked unverified rather than assumed.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
Charles H. McCauley Associates designed a new 88,062-square-foot building for 1,200 students on a 25-acre site; Robins Engineering won the $1,216,896 construction contract. McCauley's design earned a Merit Award from the Alabama Council of Architects — landmark architecture for a Black junior college in 1960s Alabama.
After the city of Bessemer donated an additional 23 acres in 1973, construction began in 1975 on the future Bessemer campus, with additions completed in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1993, and 1998. The growth made Bessemer State Technical College Alabama's largest technical college before the 2005 merger.
The school's technology center was supported in part by a $1 million donation from the Scrushy Family Foundation. The gift's exact year was not found in sources checked, but it underwrote the technical-division facilities that carry the 1949 trade-school mission forward.
The July 1, 2005 merger turned Bessemer State Technical College — by then Alabama's largest technical college — into LSCC's Bessemer Campus at 1100 9th Avenue SW in Bessemer. Lawson State became a true two-campus institution spanning Birmingham and Bessemer.
In May 2012 the college purchased the site of the former Wenonah Elementary School for expansion of the Birmingham campus footprint.
The college developed plans in spring 2022 to upgrade HVAC equipment using remaining HEERF II-HBCU and American Rescue Plan funds, modernizing climate systems across the Birmingham and Bessemer campuses.
The U.S. Department of Education approved major renovations to four instructional facilities more than fifty years old — long-deferred capital work on the college's oldest classroom buildings, approved by the Alabama Community College System.
In summer 2026 the college solicited bids for the demolition of Building H and the aging resident building on the Birmingham campus, clearing ground for the campus's next chapter of renewal.
On September 29, 2026, the Floor Covering Education Foundation cut the ribbon on its Birmingham Training Center, which serves as a hands-on instructional site for Lawson State and Jefferson State students through FCEF's FI41 Flooring Technician program and Alabama's Skills for Success initiative.
The Arthur Shores Fine Arts Building houses the college's basketball gym with a hardwood court, a modern fitness center, a swimming pool, and locker facilities — the home of Cougar basketball games and campus recreation. Its construction year was not found in sources checked.
Notable faculty include Bessie Hunter-Shelton, Music and Humanities instructor and Director of the LSCC Jazz Band (documented 2020). Athletics run out of the Arthur Shores Fine Arts Building; individual head-coach and athletic-director names were not found in the sources checked.
In office since April 1, 2021, after seven months as interim; steering the college's post-Ward stabilization and facility renewal.
Lawson State feels like what it is: a working-class HBCU community college where most students commute and many arrive on dual-enrollment or workforce tracks. The campus calendar runs on annual rituals — SGA elections and installations, convocations, the Christmas Musical, Blue and Gold Week, homecoming, an honors convocation, the Graduate/Alumni Banquet, and the President's Brunch — and the Arthur Shores gym doubles as the social center on game nights. With on-campus housing on the Birmingham campus and a student body that is roughly 80% Black and majority part-time, the culture is commuter-friendly but pride-heavy: navy and gold, Cougar everything, and a nursing program the whole city knows by reputation.