"Sir, tell them we are rising."  

 —Richard Robert Wright, Sr. 

Walter Bernard Hill Hall at Savannah State University 

Savannah State University (SSU) is the oldest historically Black public university founded in the State of Georgia and the first institution of higher learning established in the city of Savannah. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are generally defined as institutions established before 1964 to educate African Americans. 

The HBCU program was founded in 1980, when Jimmy Carter, then U.S. President and former Governor of Georgia, signed an executive order to provide Federal grants to strengthen these historic and essential institutions of higher learning. HBCU grant funds are appropriated and awarded through the Historic Preservation Fund that the National Park Service administers. 

Following the passage of the Second Morrill Land Grant Act in 1890, the Georgia General Assembly passed legislation to form a segregated school "…for the education and training of colored students…" that would operate under the umbrella of the University of Georgia.  

Walter Bernard Hill Hall, built between 1900-1901 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, is the earliest remaining building found on the Savannah State University campus. The building became named for Dr. Walter Bernard Hill, then the Chancellor of the University of Georgia. 

The institution's first president, then called Georgia State Industrial College, was Richard Robert Wright, Sr., a man born into slavery in 1855 who led a long and extraordinarily productive life until he died in 1947. His son, Richard Robert Wright, Jr., was the first degreed graduate of the college in 1898. 

After the American Civil War came to its bloody end and slavery was abolished, Wright moved with his mother from his birthplace in Dalton, Georgia, to Atlanta. There, he attended a school founded by the American Missionary Association to educate children of Freedmen. In 1868, when a Union General asked what would be the best message he could take back with him to relay to the people living in the north, Wright boldly answered: "Sir, tell them we are rising." It became Wright's lifelong motto. 

In 1876, Wright was the valedictorian of the first commencement ceremony held at Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University. Originally a school created by ex-slaves for freed people in 1862, it became Atlanta University in 1865 and was the first HBCU founded and recognized in the American South. 

Wright served as President of (what is now) Savannah State University from 1891 to 1921. He took a leave of absence in 1898 to serve as the first African American paymaster of the United States Volunteers to the United States Army. Appointed by President William McKinley, Richard Robert Wright, Sr., was the highest-ranking African American officer serving during the Spanish American War. 

In 1921, Wright retired from the college he helped found at age-67 and moved to Philadelphia. After taking courses from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, he founded Philadelphia's Citizens and Southern Bank and Trust Company. He then co-founded the first organization of Black-owned banks. His bank continued to grow slowly, and it survived the Great Depression 

In his 80s, Richard Robert Wright, Sr., led the effort to name the first day of February as National Freedom Day to commemorate President Lincoln's signing of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. President Truman signed that measure into law in 1948, which helped provide the impetus to turn Negro History Week, which started in 1926, into Black History Month in 1976.