Raymond Adams

Raymond is the great-grandson of Lewis Adams, the founder of Tuskegee Normal School, now Tuskegee University.  He writes about how in 1880, two White Alabama State legislators were worried about their reelection probabilities during Reconstruction.  The men bargained with his great-grandfather, a prominent local Black Tuskegee businessman, former enslaved person, and community leader. They promised Adams that if he delivered the Black vote for them, they would introduce a bill in the State legislature to fund a college for Black people in the Macon County area.

The legislators won with the help of the Black vote and kept their promise.  The legislature appropriated $2,000.00 for the college. Lewis Adams and a business colleague and former White enslaver, George Campbell, recruited Booker T. Washington from Hampton Institute to become their Founding Principal.

Raymond is proud of his family’s Christian traditions which they can trace back to Lewis Adams.  He claims that his parents’ lack of participation in the Civil Rights Movement had to do with their faith.

Raymond attended Tennessee State University, majored in business, and joined the cadres of freshly minted Black college graduates to be recruited by corporations hoping to diversify their workforce during the 1960s and 70s.

Raymond has an MPA and started a nonprofit in the health care field.