Kentucky State University celebrated Atwood Day March 25 to honor the late Rufus B. Atwood, the University’s ninth and longest-serving president.

The Atwood Day Assembly, with the theme “Democracy Moving Forward: Looking Toward a New Day,” featured Dr. William H. Turner as its keynote speaker. Turner is the interim director of Kentucky State’s Center for Research on the Eradication of Educational Disparities (CREED) and the former interim president of Kentucky State. 

Dr. Anthony Troy Adams, director of the Atwood Institute for Race, Education, and the Democratic Ideal, said Atwood served Kentucky State heroically and with distinction through three name changes, grew the campus infrastructure and faced innumerable obstacles during the course of his presidency.  

Kentucky State University President M. Christopher Brown II said when the Atwood Institute was created, it “was designed to detect, to dialogue and to discover ways to address these three issues: race, education and democracy.”

“It is our hope that today’s assembly will remind each of us to explore these issues,” President Brown said. 

Turner outlined his connection to Kentucky State University, noting the influence Atwood had on the teachers who influenced Turner. 

“Only God knows how widespread is the legacy around this world of Dr. Rufus Atwood,” Turner said.

The existence of the Atwood Institute is critical, Turner said. 

“What better time than now to have this Atwood Institute standing guard right now in this place to shield us from the recent callous and cold-hearted onslaught to American democracy, which is rooted in race,” Turner said. “The Atwood Institute must carry on in the Commonwealth of Kentucky those conversations that are necessary to address the continuing American dilemma.”

Student Government Association President Kirk Miller issued a challenge to conclude the program. 

“I would like to charge everyone to always look toward the future as our longest-serving president, Dr. Rufus B. Atwood, did,” Miller said.

Atwood Day was created to memorialize and celebrate the contributions of Atwood, who, during his 33-year tenure as president, secured the college’s accreditation, as well as important campus improvements for the Commonwealth’s only publicly funded black college.

The day of remembrance is to be celebrated in March, which marks the date of his birth – March 15, 1897 – and the date of his death – March 18, 1983.

Atwood Day is an initiative of the Atwood Institute for Race, Education, and the Democratic Ideal.