Shepard, James E.

James Edward Shepard was born in Raleigh, N.C., on 3 November 1875 and died in Durham, N.C., on 6 October 1947. In 1909, he founded and served as president of the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race. In 1925, the School became the North Carolina College for Negroes (later North Carolina Central University), the first state-funded liberal arts college for African Americans in the United States.

James Edward Shepard was born in Raleigh, N.C., on 3 November 1875 to Reverend Augustus Shepard and Harriet E. Whitted Shepard. Reverend Shepard was the pastor of White Rock Baptist Church, a prominent African American congregation in Durham, N.C. James Shepard was the eldest of twelve children. He received his undergraduate education at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., and graduated with a Ph.G. degree in pharmacy in 1894. From 1895 to 1897, he worked as a pharmacist and religious educator in Virginia and North Carolina. Shepard was the owner and pharmacist of the first African American drug store in Durham, N.C., and the field secretary for the International Sunday School Association.

On 7 November 1895, Shepard married Annie Day Robinson, a native of Yanceyville, N.C., the daughter of Thomas Day Jr. and Mary Day of Virginia, and the granddaughter of furniture maker Thomas Day. Shepard and Robinson had two daughters, Annie Day Shepard (who married Isaac H. Smith Jr.) and Marjorie A. Shepard.

In 1909, the Durham Merchants Association together with prominent African American businessmen John Merrick and Charles C. Spaulding, physicians Aaron M. Moore and Charles H. Shepard, and educator William Gaston Pearson raised $25,000 for a school that Shepard planned to open in Durham, N.C., called the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race. The official charter was signed on 28 June 1909, and classes began in 1910. The school provided professional training and development for African American teachers. Twenty of the original twenty-five acres of the campus--located just outside the Durham city limits on the traditionally African American side of Durham known as Hayti--were donated by philanthropist Brodie L. Duke.

By 1912, the campus had ten buildings and approximately 130 students. In 1915, the school was sold and renamed the National Training School. In 1923, the North Carolina General Assembly began to provide annual support of $20,639, and the name was changed to Durham State Normal School. Despite the support, the school faced financial hardships and mounting debt nearing $49,000. When Shepard could not raise the money, he urged the state of North Carolina to take over the school. In the legislative session of 1925, a bill was passed with only one dissenting vote to make it a state institution, and the school was renamed the North Carolina College for Negroes, becoming the first public liberal arts college for African Americans in the United States. The first four-year class graduated in 1929. After Shepard's death in 1947, the name became North Carolina College at Durham. In 1969, the North Carolina General Assembly changed the name to North Carolina Central University (NCCU), and, in 1972, NCCU joined the University of North Carolina (System).

Shepard was actively involved in fraternal, religious, business, and civic organizations in the local Durham community, North Carolina, and the nation. From 1928 to 1933 and again from 1936 to his death in 1947, Shepard served as Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons of North Carolina. Today, two Mason chapters are named in his honor, including the James E. Shepard Chapter #840 in Durham, N.C. Shepard also served as Grand Patron of the Eastern Star (the world's largest fraternal organization), and as secretary of finances for the Knights of Pythias (an international, non-sectarian fraternal order). Shepard served as president of the State Negro Teachers Association and the Interdenominational Sunday School Convention. He was a member of the board of directors for Mechanics and Farmers Bank, the trustee board for the Oxford Colored Orphanage, the Odd Fellows, the Civic Club, the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, and the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.