Jefferson City, Missouri · Founded 1866 · Stripes
“Missouri's first Black college, founded in 1866 on the paychecks of Black Civil War soldiers, still marching in the state capital.”
Full 2024 halftime show: drum major intro, band drill, Blue Flame feature, and ballad, the Storm at full strength.
Three-way HBCU band showdown with Kentucky State's Mighty Marching Thorobreds and Livingstone's Blue Thunder.
Archival 2009 footage of the Storm in the Harper era, peak first-female-director years.
Full battle of the bands between Simmons College of Kentucky and Lincoln's Storm, one of the most-watched HBCU band battles of the year.
Field show from the Storm's third football game of 2012 against Missouri Southern.
Official university film celebrating generations of Lincoln Greeks and the traditions that bring Blue Tigers home for homecoming.
Official LU journalism students interview alumni and students on why they love Lincoln; pure Blue Tiger pride.
Homecoming 2026 footage from Jefferson City, parade and game-week energy.
Band-focused homecoming 2026 video, the Storm in its element.
Homecoming party footage capturing the social side of Blue Tiger homecoming week.
Official university promo built around the mission statement, a compact introduction to the school.
A Langston student's vlog of the 2026 Battle of the LUs in Jefferson City: travel day, game day, and the Langston band at halftime, game on the line with five seconds left.
Class of 1935; plaintiff in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), the Supreme Court case that cracked 'separate but equal' in graduate education. Disappeared mysteriously in 1939.
Chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later headed Howard University's chemistry department (1969-1976).
Fighter pilot with the famed 332nd Fighter Group, the Tuskegee Airmen; killed in action in 1945.
Eight-time Pro Bowl NFL defensive back of the 1970s and 80s who later returned as head coach of the Blue Tiger football team.
NFL defensive back; Lincoln football great of the 1960s.
Major League Baseball outfielder, 1962-1971; Lincoln University Alumni Hall of Fame.
Canadian Football Hall of Fame member.
Original member of The 5th Dimension, the Grammy-winning vocal group of the late 1960s and early 70s.
Jazz saxophonist and composer, a leading voice of the avant-garde since the 1970s.
Jazz saxophonist and composer, founder of the World Saxophone Quartet.
Comedian and actor, former host of Def Comedy Jam.
Voice of Frylock on Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force; stage actor.
Actor, best known as Mr. Johnson on Abbott Elementary.
First African-American female reporter at The Washington Post; co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.
Missouri state senator and former senate minority leader.
Served in both houses of the Missouri State Legislature.
First African-American federal judge in Arkansas.
Advocate for Black women's rights and desegregation.
Class of 1978; businesswoman, minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Green Bay Packers board member; keynoted the 2026 Founders' Day Convocation.
U.S. Congressman from Missouri.
At the end of the Civil War, the men of the 62nd and 65th United States Colored Infantry, regiments largely recruited in Missouri, decided they wanted to keep studying as civilians. They passed resolutions pledging to found a school "for the special benefit of free blacks" and raised about $6,300 from their own salaries to do it. On January 14, 1866, the Lincoln Institute was born, with white abolitionist officer Richard Baxter Foster opening its doors that fall to a first class of two students in a dilapidated frame building in Jefferson City. It remains the only institute of higher education in America founded by Civil War veterans.
Money stayed tight in the early years, so donations came from wherever they could be found, including recently emancipated Black people and sympathetic white neighbors. University folklore holds that the outlaw Jesse James himself gave to the cause on two occasions, handing over five dollars and then ten. Whether the story is literally true, it captures the school's scrappy origins: the people with the least carried the dream anyway, and the building's walls were said to have cracks big enough to throw a cat through.
Missouri started paying the school $5,000 a year to train teachers for the state's new public school system for Black students, most of them formerly enslaved men and women. That money, plus support from religious groups, kept the doors open and moved Lincoln from a charity project toward a real institution. Teaching remained the school's beating heart for decades.
Lincoln Institute moved to its present campus in Jefferson City, the site the university still occupies today. The move gave the school room to grow beyond the cramped frame building where it started. The hilltop above the capital city would slowly fill in with the brick halls that define Lincoln's look.
The institute formally deeded its property to the state of Missouri and became a state institution, locking in public funding and public responsibility. That deed is what made Lincoln a public HBCU rather than a church-supported school like many of its peers. It also tied the university's fate to the Missouri legislature for the next century and a half.
Inman E. Page took the presidency and held it for eighteen years, the longest early tenure in school history. He oversaw enrollment growth, the construction of new buildings, the hiring of new faculty, and a steady expansion of the college curriculum beyond teacher training. The main library still carries his name, and he remains the president most associated with Lincoln's turn from institute to college.
Under the second Morrill Act, Missouri designated Lincoln a land-grant institution, which meant new emphasis on agriculture, mechanics, and teaching. The designation put Lincoln on a funding track that kept it alive through lean decades. Today Lincoln still calls itself an 1890 land-grant university and runs agricultural research through its College of Agriculture, Environmental and Human Sciences.
The Missouri Legislature passed a bill introduced by Walthall M. Moore, the first Black American to serve in that body, changing the name from Lincoln Institute to Lincoln University and creating a Board of Curators to govern it. By then the school had expanded to offer graduate programs, and the new name matched the ambition. Four-year college work in arts and sciences followed, accredited by the North Central Association in 1934.
Lloyd Gaines graduated from Lincoln in 1935 with a degree in history, then, with encouragement from his advisor Dr. Lorenzo Greene, applied to the University of Missouri School of Law. Missouri denied him entry and offered instead to pay his tuition to attend law school in another state, the standard arrangement of the Jim Crow era. Gaines, backed by the NAACP, sued, and his case became one of the most important legal attacks on segregation in higher education America had ever seen.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gaines's favor, holding that Missouri had to provide him an in-state legal education equal to what white students got. The decision cracked the foundation of "separate but equal" in graduate education and set up the path to Brown v. Board of Education sixteen years later. Gaines himself vanished mysteriously in March 1939, at age 27, never to be found. Lincoln now honors him with a permanent exhibit in the Inman E. Page Library and, posthumously, the Missouri State Bar granted him a law license.
Lincoln started graduate instruction in the summer session of 1940, with majors in education and history and minors in English, history, and sociology. The move completed the school's evolution from teacher-training institute to full university. A School of Journalism followed in February 1942.
The university's marching band, the Marching Musical Storm, was founded in 1948 and has been one of the largest student organizations on campus ever since. The band performs at all home football games, select basketball games, parades, and exhibitions across Missouri and the country, including halftime shows at St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs games. Its poem tells you everything about the attitude: "Drums like thunder rolling through the sky... here comes THE STORM!!!"
After the Supreme Court declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, Lincoln opened its admissions to everyone who could meet its entrance criteria, regardless of ethnicity. Enrollment climbed from about 400 to more than 1,000 students. The shift made Lincoln one of the most diverse HBCUs in America, a fact the school still leans on, though alumni and administrators continue to argue over how the school balances that diversity with its founding Black mission.
Earl Edgar Dawson began a thirteen-year presidency that carried Lincoln through the 1960s. The tallest building on campus, the ten-story Dawson Hall residence tower built in 1970, was raised at the tail end of his tenure and bears his era's mark. His years covered the civil rights movement's peak, with Lincoln students living through the same pressures as every Black campus in America.
The Lincoln women's outdoor track and field team won the NCAA Division II national championship, the first of five straight titles from 2003 through 2007, a run unmatched in Division II history. The sprint-heavy Blue Tigers turned Jefferson City into the capital of small-college track. They added more outdoor titles in 2009, 2014, 2018, and 2019, plus indoor championships in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2016, fourteen national team titles in all under head coach Victor Thomas.
Rhonda L. Harper became director of the Marching Musical Storm, making her the first woman to lead an HBCU marching band. Her appointment was national news in the band world and opened a door that directors like Grambling's Nikole Roebuck would walk through later. Under Harper the Storm marched at NFL halftime shows, including the St. Louis Rams versus Chicago Bears game in November 2008, televised on Fox.
Lincoln revived its football program after a twenty-year absence, football had been dropped after the 1989 season, and re-entered the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. The Blue Tigers played their home games at Dwight T. Reed Stadium, a 5,500-seat facility. The return gave the Marching Musical Storm a home sideline again and rebuilt one of the school's oldest gameday traditions from scratch.
On May 22, 2019, an EF3 tornado tore through Jefferson City and caused significant damage to the historic President's Residence near the campus. The storm was a gut punch to the city and the university in the same night. Recovery and repairs became one of the administration's defining early tasks under then-president Jerald Woolfolk.
President Jerald Jones Woolfolk announced in May 2021 that she would step down at the end of the school year, after three years leading the university. Her departure closed a chapter that included the tornado recovery and the COVID-19 pandemic. The search for her successor ended the next year with a controversial pick.
John B. Moseley, Lincoln's former basketball coach and athletic director, became president in 2022. His appointment made him the first white president of Lincoln since founding president Richard Baxter Foster in 1866, a fact that drew national attention. He has pushed a "regional institution" identity and enrollment growth, moves that have thrilled some supporters and deeply unsettled parts of the alumni base.
Lincoln hired Eugene Diggs II, a former Morgan State drum major and drill writer, as director of bands starting June 1. Diggs set out to bring back the music education degree, and by all accounts he tripled the size of the Marching Musical Storm during his two years. In May 2025 he left to lead Delaware State's Approaching Storm, and Lincoln began another search for the next director.
Lincoln moved its athletics from the MIAA to the Great Lakes Valley Conference for the 2024-25 school year, and the women's track team won the NCAA Division II 4x400-meter relay national title in its first GLVC season. The same year brought tragedy: vice president Antoinette Candia-Bailey died by suicide in January after complaining of harassment by the president, and alumni demanded Moseley's resignation. An independent investigation found no evidence of bullying, and after two months of voluntary leave Moseley was reinstated, a verdict the alumni association publicly rejected as causing "irrevocable harm" to the university.
During homecoming week in October 2024, Lincoln broke ground at 709 East Dunklin Street on a $40 million, 40,000-square-foot Health and Security Sciences Institute, with President Moseley and Governor Mike Parson both speaking at the ceremony. The building will house the nursing school, the law enforcement training academy, and an emergency operations training center. Moseley has called it one of the few facilities of its kind on any American college campus.
On January 15, 2026, Lincoln opened a year-long 160th anniversary celebration with a Founders' Day Convocation in Mitchell Auditorium honoring the soldiers of the 62nd and 65th. The keynote came from Valerie Daniels-Carter, Lincoln class of 1978, a businesswoman who owns part of the Milwaukee Bucks and sits on the Green Bay Packers board. President Moseley used the occasion to tout record enrollment momentum and the campus transformations underway.
The oldest and most storied rivalry in Lincoln football: two HBCUs that share the LU initials, a series dating to 1924. The teams have met 64 times, with Langston leading 40-22-2. The 2026 renewal, the first meeting since 2017, ended 19-14 Langston in Jefferson City, with Lincoln's quarterback tackled two yards short of the end zone on the final play.
An in-state Division II foil in the GLVC era, with the Miners administering a 59-0 defeat in November 2025 that showed how far the Blue Tigers still have to climb in their new conference. Not a historic rivalry, but the kind of measuring-stick game that defines a rebuilding program.
🥁 Marching Musical Storm · since 1948
One of the largest student organizations on campus, the Marching Musical Storm plays every home football game, most home basketball games, parades, and exhibitions across the country, with trips to Philadelphia, Memphis, and Oklahoma City. Its rallying poem, by DeDe King, is pure attitude: "Drums like thunder rolling through the sky... Please don't fret. You have been warned. To go take cover, because here comes THE STORM!!!" The band's history includes a pioneering milestone, the first woman to direct any HBCU marching band, and a recent rebuild that tripled its membership.
First female band director of any HBCU band, a national milestone. Led the Storm at NFL halftimes including the St. Louis Rams vs. Chicago Bears game in November 2008, televised on Fox.
Former Morgan State drum major and drill writer who set out to bring back the music education degree. Tripled the size of the Marching Musical Storm in two years, then left in May 2025 to lead Delaware State's Approaching Storm.
Director of Percussion for the band program, listed as the current percussion contact on the university's band page. The successor as full Director of Bands after Diggs's 2025 departure was not verified from the sources reviewed.
The Divine Nine are woven into campus life, with a homecoming Greek Serenade held on the steps of Page Library and generations of Lincoln Greeks featured in the university's own homecoming films. The university's residential campus remains overwhelmingly Black, about 95 percent of students living on campus, and Greek life is a visible part of that culture. Only Delta Sigma Theta's Alpha Theta and Zeta Phi Beta's Xi Beta could be verified to chapter level; other organizations' chapter charters were not verified from the sources reviewed.
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Colonial Revival hall that anchors the Lincoln University Hilltop Campus Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. One of the signature buildings of the Page-era campus.
Ten-story residence tower, the tallest building on campus, originally housing freshman and upper-class women; designated the university's freshmen center in May 2009 and made coed. Underwent an extensive renovation managed by S.M. Wilson & Co. starting in 2023, with new mechanical systems, window replacement, roof repairs, and modernized common spaces with computer labs and virtual learning rooms.
Lincoln broke ground on a new International Cultural Center, part of the school's push to serve its international student population, historically ranked among the top in the Midwest.
The 5,500-seat stadium became the Blue Tigers' home field when football returned after a twenty-year absence, giving the Marching Musical Storm a home sideline again.
$11 million, 79,808-square-foot LEED-certified recreation and wellness center at 1299 Lafayette Street, shared between Lincoln University and the City of Jefferson's Parks, Recreation and Forestry department. Four gymnasiums, a fitness center, a walking track, classrooms, and the university's athletic department offices in the lower level.
$40 million, 40,000-square-foot institute at 709 East Dunklin Street, with groundbreaking during homecoming week attended by President Moseley and Governor Mike Parson. Houses the nursing school, the law enforcement training academy, and an emergency operations training center, one of few such facilities on any American college campus.
Historic campus hall used for university events, including the annual President's Award Recognition Gala. Part of the older hilltop building stock that defines Lincoln's look.
Main library named for the defining early president, home to the Lincoln University Archives and Ethnic Studies Center and the permanent Lloyd Gaines exhibit. (Original construction date not verified from the sources reviewed.)
Longtime home of Blue Tiger basketball and the annual Lincoln University Regional Science Fair. (Original construction date not verified from the sources reviewed.)
Home of the music program and the Marching Musical Storm's headquarters, with Mitchell Auditorium hosting the Founders' Day Convocation. (Original construction date not verified from the sources reviewed.)
Lincoln's faculty history is unusually distinguished for a small school. Sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox, an early world-systems theorist, taught here from 1949 to 1970. Historian Lorenzo Greene taught from 1933 to 1972 and was the advisor who pushed Lloyd Gaines toward law school. Tennis pioneer Althea Gibson was an athletics instructor in the early 1950s, before she won Wimbledon. Classical composer Robert Nathaniel Dett, journalist Armistead S. Pride (who ran the journalism department 1943-1976), and landscape architect Charles Edgar Dickinson Jr., the first Black member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, all taught at Lincoln. Vice president Antoinette Candia-Bailey's 2024 death and the investigation that followed remain the defining recent staff story.
Former Blue Tiger basketball coach and athletic director; president since 2022 and the school's most contested modern leader.
Head coach for 15-plus years and the architect of the women's program's fourteen NCAA Division II national team titles, the most decorated coach in school history.
Oversaw the hiring of band director Eugene Diggs II and the modern athletics rebuild.
Campus life runs on HBCU ritual: step shows, the Storm at every home game, and a residential campus that is about 95 percent Black even as the overall enrollment is far more diverse. The student newspaper is The Clarion, the radio station is KJLU 88.9 FM, named Black College Radio Station of the Year in 2006, and JCTV covers campus on public-access television. The alma mater, "Lincoln, O, Lincoln," is sung to an 1827 German folk tune, the same melody West Point and Wake Forest use. The official mascot of the athletic teams is Stripes, a Blue Tiger.