Salisbury, North Carolina · Founded 1879 · Blue Bears
“The little Salisbury HBCU where Black college football was born — founded 1879 by AME Zion ministers, first game played on its own snowy front lawn.”
Vintage battle-of-the-bands footage of the Livingstone band at the Charlotte BOTB in 2005.
Official recruitment film from Director of Bands Anthony S. Jones Sr.'s era — the face of the Blue Thunder in the early 2020s.
Full Blue Thunder set from the 2026 Midwest Showdown against Lincoln (MO) and Kentucky State.
4K fan footage of the Blue Thunder marching in for 2025 homecoming.
Blue Thunder (billed as Quiet Storm) halftime show vs Allen, September 2025.
The Quiet Storm-era band at the E.E. Smith Battle of the Bands after FSU's homecoming, October 2012.
Drumline battle between the Commemorative Classic rivals — Livingstone vs Johnson C. Smith, 2025, in 4K.
2011 homecoming fifth quarter: Livingstone's Quiet Storm vs Morris Brown's Wolverines after Fayetteville State marched out early.
Pep band performance at the 2009 Weldon High School Battle of the Bands.
Concert band's Harlem Shake video — a slice of early-2010s campus culture.
2026 Blue Bears football highlights vs Bluefield State.
Full men's basketball game vs Shaw at New Trent Gym, January 2025.
Founder and first president; the nationally famed orator whose 1881 England tour raised the $10,000 that built the college.
Class of 1927; returned as president 1958-1968 and authored the 10-year plan that reshaped the campus.
The first African-American neurosurgeon in the United States — the college lists him first among its historic firsts.
The first African-American president of the National Education Association.
The first African-American mayor of Salisbury, N.C. — the college's own hometown.
The first African-American mayor of Spartanburg, S.C.
Senior bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church, elected bishop in 1992; presiding prelate of the Piedmont Episcopal District and chairman of the Livingstone College Board of Trustees.
One of only ten Black women to earn the rank of brigadier general on active duty; the senior African-American woman in the Army at her 2003 retirement.
United Methodist minister and church administrator honored as an N.C. HBCU Living Legend.
Former NFL tight end with the New England Patriots; the college's most prominent professional football alumnus.
Livingstone All-American on the 4x400 relay team; mother of NBA star Zion Williamson — who surprised the 2023 Athletic Hall of Fame brunch to support her.
Member of Livingstone's 1997 and 1998 CIAA championship football teams; father of Zion Williamson.
Basketball scholarship athlete (1964), two-year team captain, Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, and president of the Livingstone College National Alumni Association.
Pastor and education advocate; B.A. in Religious Studies, former SGA president and national vice president of the UNCF Pre-Alumni Council while at Livingstone.
Wrestled three years at Livingstone and won an NAIA championship; later a longtime wrestling coach.
A conference of African Methodist Episcopal Zion ministers founded Zion Wesley Institute in Concord, North Carolina, to train ministers and teachers for the Black community. The school's stated goal was the training of young men and women for religious and educational work in America and in Africa. Its first sessions were held in the parsonage of Bishop C. R. Harris, who served as the first principal (1879-1880), followed by Professor Alexander S. Richardson (1880-1881). After just three brief sessions the Institute ran into financial trouble and closed in Concord.
Dr. Joseph Charles Price and Bishop James Walker Hood were serving as delegates to the Ecumenical Conference in London when they agreed to become fundraisers for the dying school. Encouraged by Bishop Hood, Price undertook a speaking tour of England for Zion Wesley Institute. The trip was a triumph of oratory: Price returned to North Carolina with $10,000, a fortune for a Black school in that era, and was elected president. That English money is the reason Livingstone exists today.
The town of Salisbury, twenty miles northeast of Concord, donated $1,000 to the trustees and invited the school to relocate. The trustees bought J. M. Gray's forty-acre farm, called Delta Grove, for $4,600 — $900 below asking, with the help of the city's mayor — and classes resumed in October 1882 with Dr. Price as president. The school had exactly three teachers, three students, a matron, and one building. Within a year enrollment reached 100, and the philosophy was set: educate the whole student — hands, head and heart — with training in religious studies alongside trades like brick masonry and construction.
Dodge Hall was built in 1886 and remains the oldest building on the Livingstone campus. It anchors the historic district that would eventually place seven campus structures on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is a brick-and-mortar monument to the era when students literally helped build their own school. Its survival through 140 years of Southern weather and tight budgets says something about how it was made.
By an act of the North Carolina legislature, Zion Wesley Institute became Livingstone College, honoring Dr. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary, philanthropist and explorer of Africa. The same year the college awarded its first degrees. Ballard Hall was built in 1887 with the generosity of Stephen Ballard and served as the main classroom building and physical plant hub; it was extensively renovated in 1997 to house the Division of Business.
On December 27, 1892, Livingstone hosted Biddle Memorial Institute (now Johnson C. Smith University) on its snow-covered front lawn for the first intercollegiate football game ever played between Black colleges. The teams bought their football with student donations, classmates sewed the uniforms, and officials kept score with a borrowed playbook. Biddle won 5-0 after a disputed Livingstone touchdown was called back. That one cold afternoon is the origin story of HBCU football culture — the bands, the tailgating, the week-long celebrations — and the Livingstone-JCSU game played every year since is now called the Commemorative Classic.
Joseph Charles Price died of Bright's disease in 1893, cutting short what Raleigh News and Observer publisher Josephus Daniels called the career of 'the most remarkable Negro I have known.' Price had delivered commencement addresses at Tuskegee Institute twice, addressed the National Education Association in 1890 on behalf of Negro education, and in 1888 turned down the post of U.S. Consul to Liberia because he believed his work at Livingstone mattered more. In the year of his death, Frederick Douglass endorsed him as the best hope of the Black population. William Harvey Goler succeeded him as president in 1894.
The Andrew Carnegie Library was erected in 1908 as a gift from Andrew Carnegie, and it is Livingstone's hands-head-heart philosophy made literal: students made the bricks and laid the walls under the instruction of their teachers. The library still houses the college's main collection, with a media room, archives room and classrooms. Very few HBCU buildings can claim the students who studied inside also fired the bricks.
William Johnson Trent took office in 1925 and led Livingstone for 32 years — through the Great Depression, World War II and the early civil rights era. His administration was a period of physical growth significant enough that the expanded National Register historic district cites the changes made 'during the administrations of presidents William Johnson Trent (1925-1958) and Dr. Samuel E. Duncan (1958-1968).' Trent's long run gave the college stability when many small Black colleges folded. John H. Brockett, Jr. served as acting president for a year after Trent's departure in 1957.
The Price Memorial Administration Building has served as the nucleus of Livingstone College since 1943, named for the founder whose home (built 1884) also stands in the historic district. In a campus of 21-plus brick buildings, this one is the administrative heart. Its construction during wartime, when building materials were scarce, shows how the college kept investing in itself even in lean years.
Dr. Samuel E. Duncan, a 1927 Livingstone graduate who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell, became president in 1958 after careers as a teacher, principal, state education supervisor and Phelps-Stokes Fund consultant. He launched an ambitious 10-year plan for the college that was fulfilled in the early 1970s, and the campus growth of his era forms part of the National Register district's period of significance. Duncan's presidency embodied the school's self-help tradition — an alumnus returning to rebuild the place that made him. The college's honors convocation is named for him today.
Livingstone won the CIAA football championship in 1960 — the first of three conference football titles in school history. The Blue Bears were competing against conference powers like Morgan State, North Carolina A&T and Maryland State in that era. It would be nearly four decades before the program tasted a conference crown again. The championship is listed in the program's official record alongside the 1997 and 1998 titles.
The Livingstone College Alumni Association raised more than $65,000 to build Alumni Memorial Stadium in 1964 — seating for 3,000 on the Livingstone side and 500 for visitors, plus a ticket booth, press box, concession stand, locker rooms and restrooms. A stadium funded by alumni fundraising rather than the institution is a statement about who really owns the school's future. The same footprint serves the Blue Bears today, rebuilt and renovated in 2023.
F. George Shipman became president in 1969 after a year as acting president by Victor J. Tulane, and led the college through the 1970s into 1982 — thirteen years covering the post-civil-rights era when HBCUs fought for students and dollars against newly integrated state universities. His tenure fulfilled the growth plans laid under Duncan. James Wells Younge, Jr. served a year as interim president after Shipman in 1982-1983.
Seven campus structures were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, forming the Livingstone College Historic District. The district includes Dodge Hall (1886), the Carnegie Library, Ballard Hall, Dr. Price's former home (1884) and other early buildings. The boundary was later expanded to include the Trent- and Duncan-era growth. For a school of Livingstone's size, federal historic recognition of seven buildings is a heavyweight credential.
Livingstone won the CIAA football championship in 1997 and repeated in 1998 — the only back-to-back conference titles in program history and its first since 1960. Lateef Williamson, father of NBA star Zion Williamson, played on both championship teams; his wife Sharonda Anderson was a Livingstone All-American on the 4x400 relay team. The titles came during Burnett Joiner's presidency (1997-1999). Decades later the 1997-98 teams remain the gold standard for Blue Bear football.
James Stinson arrived in Salisbury from Barber-Scotia College in 2004 to coach men's basketball, taking over a program that had never even reached the CIAA title game. What followed was the most sustained run of success in school history: four straight CIAA tournament final appearances from 2013 to 2016. Stinson's teams played defense, rebounded, and by 2014 they were cutting down nets. His 2017 N.C. HBCU Living Legend honor recognized what he built at Livingstone.
Dr. Jimmy R. Jenkins, Sr. took office in 2006 after interim presidencies by Catrelia Steele Hunter (2004-2006) and a turbulent stretch of short tenures in the 1980s and 90s. Jenkins would become the longest-serving president since Trent, and his era was defined by visible, physical transformation of the campus. He inherited a school that needed modern facilities and left one with a science annex, blue turf, a campus radio station and an esports arena.
The annual Livingstone-Johnson C. Smith football game was formally renamed the Commemorative Classic in 2009, honoring the December 27, 1892 contest that started Black college football. The CIAA and both schools embraced the name as a tribute that turns every meeting into a history lesson. Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams Parker has called it 'a yearly reminder of where Black college football began and who continues to carry it forward.' JCSU dominated the early decades — going unbeaten for nearly 40 years — but Livingstone's 1990s teams and recent squads have made it a fight again.
On a Saturday night in Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena, Livingstone beat Winston-Salem State 83-68 to win the first CIAA basketball championship in school history — the program's third title-game appearance in four years. Seniors Mark Thomas (23 points) and Jody Hill (21 points, tournament MVP) led the way, with Eric Mayo hauling in 17 rebounds. The Blue Bears advanced to the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional at 21-7. The third time was the charm, and the 2014 title is the single biggest basketball moment in Livingstone history.
Livingstone repeated as CIAA tournament champions in 2015, upending Winston-Salem State again, 106-91, behind Daryl Traynham's 23 points, Eric Mayo's 22, and tournament MVP Ty Newman's 13. The Blue Bears became the first team since Johnson C. Smith in 2008-09 to win consecutive CIAA titles. Two banners in New Trent Gym — 2014 and 2015, the only two in school history — are the trophies of the Stinson era. The program made three NCAA Tournament appearances in the 2013-2016 window.
Livingstone announced a renovation of Alumni Memorial Stadium featuring artificial turf dyed Livingstone blue, a full track-and-field remodel, and a video scoreboard in the southeast corner. The project was framed as a recruiting weapon: athletic director Lamonte Massie-Sampson said the improvements showed President Jenkins's commitment to positioning Livingstone as a premier Division II program. The work was completed in 2023 as a $2.8 million renovation with partial funding from the Willie Lanier HBCU Fields of Dreams Program — new field, track and electronic scoreboard, seating for 6,000.
Dr. Jimmy R. Jenkins, Sr. announced his retirement in February 2022 after 16 years, timing the announcement with the ribbon-cutting on a new state-of-the-art science annex. His legacy list: Alumni Memorial Stadium upgrades, an esports arena, an application for Level III status to award graduate degrees (and a proposed rename to Livingstone University), a study-abroad exchange spanning five countries, a gated campus with wrought-iron fencing, the Blue Bear mascot relocated to the front lawn and painted blue, and campus radio station WLJZ 107.1 FM. Dr. Anthony J. Davis succeeded him as the 13th president. Livingstone's first-ever graduate program was later covered by Queen City News as a milestone for the college.
On November 9, 2024, Livingstone won the 132nd Commemorative Classic 15-10 over Johnson C. Smith on Senior Day in Salisbury. Brenton Hilton threw touchdown passes to Calvin Scott (64 yards) and Bryce Robinson (10 yards), and Jason Zapata added a 39-yard field goal, as the Blue Bears held off a late JCSU rally. The win capped a 6-3 season — the program's strongest campaign in years. Three of the last five meetings had gone Livingstone's way, proof the old rivalry was competitive again.
In July 2025, Livingstone alumnus Sir Davis — a 2011 graduate and former Blue Thunder tuba player — returned as Executive Director of Band and Band Operations, promising to 'restore the storm' with new donor-funded uniforms and a run at the HBCU Battle of the Bands. The same year, President Anthony J. Davis shared publicly how a viral commencement appeal for a kidney donor led an anonymous donor to step forward, saving his life after his battle with kidney disease and dialysis. In an HBCU Gameday interview he laid out a $225 million campus transformation vision: new housing and a four-star hotel. The 2025 Commemorative Classic went to JCSU 26-21 in Charlotte; Livingstone finished 5-5.
In April 2026 Livingstone promoted Curtis J. Walker Sr. — a 30-year coach and administrator who had served as special assistant to the president, NIL specialist and football program consultant — to Vice President of Athletics and Athletic Operations. That fall, Stonecoming 2026 ran September 26 to October 3 with the Gospel Kickback, the Mister & Miss Livingstone coronation, a Stone Fresh Fashion Show, the Stonecoming concert (Monaleo, Captain Z, Kentheman) and a Keith Sweat/Travis Porter/Chubb Rock finale, capped by the Stonecoming game against Fayetteville State. Livingstone also landed as a Top 10 finalist in HBCU Buzz's A Different World Challenge with its student-made 'Team Stonemade' film.
The oldest rivalry in Black college football — it began as Black college football itself on December 27, 1892, when Biddle beat Livingstone 5-0 on the snowy front lawn in Salisbury. Formally named the Commemorative Classic in 2009. The schools have met 86 times with JCSU leading the series 49-34-3; JCSU went unbeaten for nearly 40 years early on, Livingstone roared back in the 1990s and has taken three of the last five, including the 132nd meeting 15-10 in 2024. JCSU took the 2025 game 26-21 in Charlotte. Every meeting is both a football game and a history ceremony.
No formal rivalry name is published, but the CIAA Southern Division matchups carry the weight of one: Livingstone beat Winston-Salem State in both of its CIAA basketball championship games (83-68 in 2014, 106-91 in 2015), and the 2026 Stonecoming football game was set against Fayetteville State. These are the annual measuring-stick games for the Blue Bears. (Formal rivalry designation unverified.)
🥁 Blue Thunder
The Livingstone marching band performs today as the Blue Thunder; older footage (2011-2012) brands it the Quiet Storm, and the football program's records call it the Marching Blue Bear Band. The Sir Davis era is an explicit homecoming story — a former tuba player returning to 'restore the storm' with new uniforms and a competitive vision. Verified band history before the Jones era could not be found in published sources; earlier directors are marked unverified.
M.M. ED, Associate Professor of Music. Led the Blue Thunder through the early 2020s — his name and email head the band's 2021 recruitment video — and the band's Instagram (@lcbluethunder) carried the name during his tenure.
Executive Director of Band and Band Operations, named July 2025. A 2011 Livingstone graduate and former Blue Thunder tuba player who also played in the jazz band, symphonic band and gospel choir as a student. Came from Mallard Creek High School in Charlotte, where he rebuilt the jazz program and took students to the National Jazz Festival. Arrived with alumni- and community-funded new uniforms and a goal of taking the Blue Thunder to the HBCU Battle of the Bands.
Livingstone's Greek roots run to the 1920s: Zeta Phi Beta's Sigma chapter (1928) and Delta Sigma Theta's Beta Kappa chapter (1947), the latter chartered as a mixed group of undergraduates and Salisbury-Rowan community members. The Divine Nine and Greek-letter organizations are confirmed present at major campus events (the college's official 'A Different World Challenge' film lists Divine Nine and Greek-letter organizations among participating groups), but no published source verified additional chapter names or which organizations are strongest at Livingstone — so this entry stays to the two verified chapters.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
Ballard Hall (built 1887) underwent extensive renovation in 1997 and now houses the Division of Business — five smart classrooms, a student lounge, the administrative office, the Blue Bear Print Shop and a technology laboratory. A 110-year-old building wired for the digital age.
Dedicated February 8, 2001, the William Blake Building replaced the old Physical Plant. The aluminum-and-brick building was funded by foundations and individuals, designed by KKA Architecture and built by Jarrell Construction of Salisbury — one of the first 21st-century additions to the historic campus.
Livingstone built an esports arena during the Jenkins administration — a bet that competitive gaming belongs on an HBCU campus. It was listed among the major developments at the college when Jenkins announced his retirement in February 2022.
Jenkins cut the ribbon on a new state-of-the-art science annex in the same week he announced his retirement — the signature academic building of his 16-year presidency, giving the STEM programs a modern home on a historic campus.
Announced in 2021 and completed in 2023: artificial turf dyed Livingstone blue, a full track-and-field remodel, and an electronic scoreboard, bringing the 1964 stadium to 6,000 seats. Partial funding came from the Willie Lanier HBCU 'Fields of Dreams' Program. The blue field made Livingstone one of a small handful of programs playing on colored turf.
Under Jenkins the campus became a gated community with decorative wrought-iron fencing — part security, part statement about the value of what sits inside. The Blue Bear mascot was also relocated to the front lawn and painted blue, planting the brand where every visitor sees it.
Livingstone established its own campus radio station, WLJZ 107.1 FM, under Jenkins — a student-media outlet that now anchors campus broadcasts and appears in the college's official video branding. For a school of ~1,200 students, a licensed FM station is an outsized asset.
The Livingstone College Historic District boundary was amended and expanded — including the Trent- and Duncan-era buildings — extending the period of significance into the 1970s and the fulfillment of Duncan's 10-year plan. Seven buildings were listed in 1982; the amendment recognizes the growth decades as historically significant too.
Jenkins launched a study-abroad exchange with students studying and living in five foreign countries — part of his push to give students, in his words, 'the capacity to command their rightful place in the global society.'
In a 2025 HBCU Gameday interview, President Davis laid out a planned $225 million campus renovation — new housing and a four-star hotel among the projects — aimed at competing with 'perceived higher echelon' HBCUs without sacrificing affordability. This is a stated vision, not a completed project; it is included because it is the current administration's public plan.
Livingstone's recent leadership is a homecoming story twice over: the president publicly ties his survival to the HBCU community that rallied around his transplant, and the band director is an alumnus returning to rebuild the program he marched in. Athletics leadership turned over in 2026 with Walker's promotion to VP of Athletics.
In office since 2022. Foster-care-system survivor; his 2025 kidney transplant — an anonymous donor answered his viral commencement appeal — became a national HBCU story. Running on a five-pillar strategy with a $225 million campus transformation vision.
Promoted April 2026 after serving as special assistant to the president, NIL specialist and football program consultant. Thirty-plus years in coaching and administration, including hall-of-fame honors and NCAA playoff runs at Catawba College; previously built 21-sport programs at North Charleston High School.
Leads the Blue Bears football program; the 2024 squad finished 6-3 with the 132nd Commemorative Classic win, and 2025 closed 5-5. (Career record details unverified beyond the seasons covered in sources.)
Arrived from Barber-Scotia College in 2004 and built the only CIAA championship era in school history — four straight title-game trips 2013-2016, titles in 2014 and 2015, three NCAA Tournament appearances. Honored as an N.C. HBCU Living Legend in 2017.
Class of 2011 alumnus and former Blue Thunder tuba player, named July 2025. Tasked with restoring the band's competitive standing in the CIAA, with new donor-funded uniforms and a target of the HBCU Battle of the Bands.
Livingstone is small — about 1,200 students on 272 acres — and the campus leans into that intimacy: the college claims more than 350 student organizations, its own FM station (WLJZ 107.1), and a homecoming week that pulls the whole town of Salisbury in. The 2026 Stonecoming lineup ran from a gospel day party to a Keith Sweat/Travis Porter/Chubb Rock finale, and the student-made 'Team Stonemade' film made the college a Top 10 finalist in HBCU Buzz's A Different World Challenge. Greek life is present — Divine Nine organizations appear in official campus films — but chapter details could not be verified from published sources.