Dr. Samuel Augustus Owen: An Iconic Black Minister on a Mission to Educate His People

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on December 17, 2024

Dr. Samuel Augustus Owen (left), Superintendent of Memphis City Schools Ernest C. Ball (center), and Owen College president Levi Watkins (right) at Commencement in 1957.

In May 1923, Dr. Samuel Augustus Owen became the 5th pastor of the historic Metropolitan Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He served as the church’s ministerial leader for more than 49 years.

Dr. Owen was a giant in the National Baptist Convention and an icon in higher education for Blacks in Tennessee during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

Dr. Owen's staunch ally in the ministerial and educational communities was Rev. Willie Lewis Varnado, who pastored the historic Cummings Street Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis. Rev. Varnado, who was my maternal grandfather, pastored 19 churches in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama during his 70 years in the Baptist church ministry.

In 1946, the Tennessee Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention (TBMEC), a Black religious/educational organization headed by Dr. Owen, purchased twelve acres of ground and buildings at Vance Avenue and Orleans Street in Memphis for $375,000 to begin a new school for Blacks seeking a post-secondary education.

Owen College administration building in 1954.

In 1954, Owen College, a two-year institution named in honor of Samuel Augustus Owen, Sr., opened with Dr. Levi Watkins as its first president.

Owen College was named after Rev. Dr. Samuel A. Owen, president of the TBMEC and pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Memphis. In this photo, Dr. Owen is at the podium on the occasion of the Tenth Founders' Day of the college, at which time presentations were made to him and to Dr. Levi Watkins, the first president of the college. Rev. Willie Lewis Varnado is seated on the far right.

In 1957, Owen College was renamed Owen Junior College. The college won full accreditation from the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges in 1958 -- only 4 years after it was founded.

Owen College Administrators, Faculty and Staff in 1957.

Owen Junior College served 2,326 students at the Vance Avenue and Orleans Street site before it merged with LeMoyne College in 1968 to become LeMoyne-Owen College.

In 1962, Dr. Watkins became the 6th president of Alabama State College in Montgomery, Alabama. At the time Alabama State was a small, unaccredited, all-black public institution in the "Cradle of the Confederacy" and "Heart of Dixie." Dr. Watkins led Alabama State to full accreditation in 1968 and university status in 1969.

In 1981, Dr. Watkins organized and spearheaded the trailblazing Knight v. Alabama federal court litigation that sought to fully desegregated Alabama's 32 public four-year colleges and universities. After 25 years of massive resistance by the state of Alabama, the Knight case resulted in court-ordered doctoral programs, new undergraduate academic programs, and nearly $600 million in new funding (beyond the regular state appropriations) and endowment money for Alabama State University and Alabama A&M University

In 1972, the TBMEC dedicated a marker on the site of the former Owen College, at the corner of Vance Avenue and Orleans Street. Among those in the photo below are Dr. Samuel A. Owen, Odell Horton, A. McEwen Williams, Dr. Levi Watkins, and Charles Dinkins, along with former students, trustees, and prominent Baptist ministers.

The legacy of Owen College has been preserved by the Owen College History Committee in the 2014 book depicted below.

For more information on the legacy and history of Owen College, visit: https://www.facebook.com/www.owencollege.edu/