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Founding
Fisk Free Colored School opened on January 9, 1866, shortly after the end of the Civil War. It was founded by John Ogden, Erastus Milo Cravath, and Edward Parmelee Smith of the American Missionary Association for the education of freedmen in Nashville. Fisk was one of several schools and colleges that the association helped found across the South to educate freed slaves following the Civil War. The school is named for Clinton B. Fisk, a Union general and assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau of Tennessee. Fisk secured a site to house the school in a former military barracks near Union Station and provided $30,000 for its endowment.

The American Missionary Association's work was supported by the United Church of Christ, which retains an affiliation with the university. Fisk is the oldest higher education institution in Nashville.

19th Century
Enrollment rose to 900 in the first several months following the school's opening, indicating the strong desire for education among local freedmen. Student ages ranged from seven to seventy.

During the nation's Reconstruction era, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation to enable free public education, which caused a need to increase teacher training. In 1867 the Fisk Free Colored School was reorganized and incorporated as Fisk University to focus on higher education. James Dallas Burrus, John Houston Burrus, Virginia E. Walker, and America W. Robinson were the first students to enroll at the university. In 1875, the two Burruses and Walker graduated from Fisk and became the first African-American students to graduate from a liberal arts college south of the Mason–Dixon line.

In 1870 Adam K. Spence became the school's principal. Spence developed plans to expand and move the school to a larger campus in north Nashville on a site that had been Fort Gillem, a Union army base. To raise money for the school's initiatives, his wife Catherine Mackie Spence traveled throughout the United States to set up mission Sunday schools in support of Fisk students, organizing endowments through the American Missionary Association. With a strong interest in religion and the arts, Adam Spence supported the founding of a student choir; they were the start of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

With the school facing financial distress, the choir went on tour to raise funds in 1871, led by professor and university treasurer George L. White. They toured the U.S. and Europe and became a sensation, singing before Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, Queen Victoria; popularizing spirituals written by Wallace Willis such as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"; and changing racial stereotypes. Their tour raised nearly $50,000 and funded construction of Jubilee Hall. It was the first building built for the education of freedmen in the South and is now a National Historic Landmark.

Fisk co-founder Cravath returned in 1875 and became the university's first president.[INSERT CITATION] He oversaw an active construction program and expansion of the school's curriculum offerings to include liberal arts, theology, and teacher training. By the turn of the 20th century, the university had strengthened its reputation, built several campus buildings, added African-American teachers and staff to the university, and enrolled a second generation of students. [INSERT CITATION]

20th Century
Fisk's dedication to liberal arts education at the turn of the century distinguished it from many other black colleges and universities that emphasized vocational training. The school established a department of social science in 1910, founded and directed by George E. Haynes. It was the first social work training center for African-American graduate students and a model for those established at other universities. The school was criticized by some at the time for fostering an elitist reputation.

From 1915 to 1925, Fayette Avery McKenzie was president of Fisk. McKenzie's tenure, before and after World War I, was during a turbulent period in American history. In spite of many challenges, McKenzie developed Fisk as the premier all Black university in the United States, secured Fisk's academic recognition as a standard college by the Carnegie Foundation, Columbia University and the University of Chicago, raised a $1 million endowment fund to ensure quality faculty, and laid a foundation for Fisk's accreditation and future success. McKenzie was eventually forced to resign when his strict policies on dress code, extracurricular activities, and other aspects of student life led to student protests in 1924 and 1925.

Thomas Elsa Jones became the university's fourth president in 1925. He sought to diversify the university's faculty and further build the school's reputation. In 1930, Fisk became the first historically black college to gain accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It was also the first such institution approved by the Association of American Universities in 1933. Accreditations for specialized programs soon followed.

In 1946, Charles S. Johnson became the university's sixth president and first African-American president.[CITATION] Johnson was a premier sociologist, a scholar who had also been the editor of Opportunity magazine, a noted periodical of the Harlem Renaissance. Johnson expanded the school's Institute of Race Relations, which was established in 1942. The institute conducted research and fostered discussion about racial disparity in the U.S. and would later help develop strategies for desegregation in schools, employment, and the military. In 1949, Fisk received the Stieglitz Collection of modern art from photographer and arts patron Alfred Stieglitz.

In 1952, Fisk was the first predominantly black college to earn a Phi Beta Kappa charter. Organized as the Delta of Tennessee Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society that December, the chapter inducted its first student members on April 4, 1953.

In 1960, Fisk students joined other black leaders in the Nashville sit-ins, nonviolent protests against segregation at lunch counters in the city during the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at the university in May 1960 in response to civil rights movement in the city. Fisk students John Lewis and Diane Nash were leaders during the protests, which led to Nashville becoming the first major city in the South to desegregate lunch counters. The two became early leaders of the national Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

On April 8, 1967, a riot occurred near the Fisk and Tennessee State University campuses after Stokely Carmichael spoke at Vanderbilt University. Although it was viewed as a "race riot", it had classist characteristics. Protestors marched from Fisk to the Nashville courthouse to protest police brutality during the riots.

In 1978 Fisk's campus was recognized as a National Historic Landmark. The campus underwent significant restoration in the 1990s through assistance from a U.S. Congressional Grant.[CITATION]

21st Century
From 2004 to 2013, Fisk was directed by its 14th president, Hazel O'Leary, former Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton. She was the second woman to serve as president of the university. On June 25, 2008, Fisk announced that it had successfully raised $4 million during the fiscal year ending June 30. It ended nine years of budget deficits and qualified for a Mellon Foundation challenge grant. However, Fisk still faced significant financial hardship, and said that it may need to close its doors unless its finances improved.

H. James Williams, served as president from February 2013 to September 2015. Williams had previously been dean of the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and, before that, an accounting professor at Georgetown University, Florida A&M, and Texas Southern University. Williams was succeeded by interim president Frank Sims. In March 2017 the Fisk board of trustees announced that Kevin Rome would be Fisk university's seventeenth president.

In June 2017, a service in memory of 1892 lynching victim Ephraim Grizzard was held in the Fisk Memorial Chapel. A plaque memorializing Grizzard and two other lynching victims—is brother Henry and Samuel Smith—was installed at St. Anselm's Episcopal church in Nashville.

In 2018 the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the university on probation. The accreditor cited failings related to financial responsibility, control of research funds, and federal and state responsibility. Fisk announced a fundraising record and increased enrollment the following year.