UniversityAlabama

Gadsden State Community College

University · Gadsden, AL

Gadsden State Community College is a historically Black community college in Gadsden, Alabama, founded in 1960 as the Gadsden Vocational Trade School by Eugene N. Prater in response to Black veterans being denied admission to the all-white Alabama School of Trades. Designated an HBCU by the US Department of Education in 1997.

Founded

Region

Alabama

Investors

People

About Alabama

Alabama runs on two cities that rarely get named in the same breath. Huntsville earned the nickname Rocket City off Redstone Arsenal and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and Cummings Research Park -- the second-largest research park in the country, 300-plus companies and 26,000 employees -- still runs on that anchor: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Leidos/Dynetics sit alongside homegrown names like ADTRAN and Teledyne Brown Engineering. Birmingham carries the weight the history books actually assign the state -- the 1963 civil rights campaign, Kelly Ingram Park, the 16th Street Baptist Church -- while running its own real startup base out of Innovation Depot, anchored by UAB research, Regions Financial, and Shipt, the grocery-delivery startup Target acquired in 2017. Two cities, two different kinds of consequential, both real.

Related Analysis

Alabama Sent Three Black Men to Congress in the 1870s. Then None for 116 Years. It Took Until 2024 to Come Back Around.

Region Stats

Total firms 97

VC / investors 1

Companies 71

Schools 25

Known For

Rocket Science

Steel & Civil Rights

UAB Research