About Us The SER Organization History

When the first class of thirty students was graduated from Tuskegee Normal School in 1885, B. Town Harvey, valedictorian of the class, called them together and they organized the Tuskegee Alumni Association, while electing him president. For the next 10 years this alumni body met principally on special occasions at the University, added the new graduates to its membership roster and made financial contributions to the Alma Mater.

In 1905, Mamie Abercrombie called together her classmates and schoolmates who lived in the in Montgomery, Alabama, and organized the first off-campus Tuskegee Alumni Club. In 1910, the second off-campus Tuskegee Alumni Club was organized in Chicago and the trend continued until there are now 110 of these associations and six professional associations (Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, Architecture, Engineering, Home Economics and Agriculture and the Tuskegee University Athletic Association) throughout the United States.

In 1916, Mr. Jesse O. Thomas, initiated the movement that led to organization of the Tuskegee General Alumni Association, which met annually and convened every third year at the University. This body was strengthened in 1938, when Earnest L. Dimitry led a movement that organized the first region to coordinate local club developments in the northeastern part of the country. In 1964, the organization was formalized as the Tuskegee National Alumni Association at the seventh Triennial Convention in Cleveland, Ohio with Daniel W. Andrews serving as the Association’s first president.