Dr. Henry Givens Jr., who led Harris-Stowe State University for over 3 decades, has sadly passed away. He was a history-maker, and a dedicated leader. Learn more about Ross’ legacy in the St. Louis Public Radio article by Gloria S. Ross.

Henry Givens Jr., the university president whose name became synonymous with Harris-Stowe, the college he rescued, transformed, nurtured and led for more than three decades, has died. 

In a 1993 profile, Givens said that it was “a pleasure to work in my own town, among the friends that I grew up with.”

He grew up in St. Louis’ storied Ville neighborhood, 10 minutes from the small teaching college that he would lead for 32 years. When he arrived in 1979, many thought the school was on the brink of extinction. Givens had other ideas.

During his tenure, Harris-Stowe’s student enrollment tripled, one building morphed into seven, and the single elementary education degree grew to 14 baccalaureate programs.

Givens, who once said he never dreamed he could be a university president, died today at his home in St. Louis of unknown causes.

He was always keenly aware of why and for whom he worked.

“If this place closed down, 98 percent of our students wouldn’t be able to go to college,” he said in his profile in “Lift Every Voice and Sing: St. Louis African Americans in the Twentieth Century.”

Givens wasn’t about to let that happen on his watch. 

Services are pending.

Beyond integration

Givens grew up at 4349 North Market St. in the Ville, once the city’s black cultural center. Acclaimed black historian Julia Davis, for whom a library is named, lived on his street.

She taught Givens at Simmons Elementary School, which he described as “the best elementary school in the city of St. Louis.” He felt the same about Sumner High School, from which he graduated in 1950.

In 1954, Givens graduated from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, the Supreme Court struck down school segregation–and Stowe Teachers College for blacks was folded into white Harris Teachers College. The Stowe name disappeared and did not claim its rightful place alongside Harris until 1976.

Right out of Lincoln, Givens began teaching fifth and sixth grade and physical education at the old Douglass School in Webster Groves. He was the school’s only male teacher.

“I loved it,” he said, but he was about to become a full-time administrator.

To integrate Douglass, administrators wanted a program “unlike anything in the nation” to attract white students.

Givens designed such a program. He had walls torn down and floors carpeted. He introduced team teaching and multiage grouping of students. Then he sold the new concept to the community.

White teachers and students flocked to the school, which became the model for today’s magnet schools. Within two years, Douglass was fully integrated with a two-year waiting list and top national achievement levels.

He became principal of Douglass in 1967 and subsequently assistant to the superintendent of schools. He earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Illinois-Urbana and a doctorate in urban education and school administration at St. Louis University. He later did postdoctoral work in higher education administration at Harvard University.

A changing mission

In 1973, Givens became the first African American assistant commissioner of Missouri’s Department of Education, where he orchestrated the merger of the Berkeley and Kinloch school districts with the Ferguson-Florissant School District.

He left the commission to accept the job of president of Harris-Stowe State College in 1979, just as control of the financially ailing school was being transferred from the St. Louis Public Schools to the state. State Sen. J.B. “Jet” Banks, once Missouri’s highest-ranking black official, led the legislative effort.

Most observers thought Givens would be overseeing Harris-Stowe’s demise. Instead, he built the college into a midtown landmark and community meeting place. 

There was only one building, which formerly housed Sumner High School, and the school offered only an elementary education degree.

When he retired in 2011, the original building bore his name because he had changed the landscape of the school’s midtown location and created a full-fledged campus.

His vision and shrewd negotiating added six buildings, including two residence halls and a student center to accommodate approximately 2,000 students.

He paid the city $10 for the land under the decaying Laclede Town federal housing and $10 for the old Vashon Community Center and its three surrounding acres. Later, he persuaded the state to give the school a great deal on a building to house a satellite business school in south city.

It took 12 years to persuade the legislature to permit Harris-Stowe to offer more degree programs. He succeeded in 1993, with the help of U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, then a state senator, who wrote the legislation.

“We stuck with it and never gave up,” Givens once told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

With the restriction lifted, he quickly began raising funds from local business and community leaders. The school added 13 degrees, including criminal justice, business administration and urban studies.

In 2005, with its expanded curriculum, the school replaced “College” with “University.”

Two campuses at once

In 1987, Givens succeeded in getting Harris-Stowe the federal designation as a historically black institution. It’s one of two in the state, the other being Lincoln University, Givens’ alma mater.

The move was not made to erase half of the school’s heritage; it was another effort to keep the school afloat. The status made Harris-Stowe eligible for as much as $2 million annually.

That same year, Gov. John Ashcroft (whose nomination for U.S. attorney general he would later oppose) asked Givens to take over his financially strapped alma mater. For months, he split his time between the two campuses, working six days a week.

“I didn’t even know where I was,” Givens said in “Lift Every Voice.” But he reduced Lincoln’s projected deficit from $1 million to $50,000.

By carefully cultivating business relationships, he became a prolific fundraiser. The year prior to his retirement, Givens led a $45 million fundraising campaign, the most successful in the school’s history.

But sometimes, business relationships were fraught.

For 30 years, prominent black leaders and members of Civic Progress, executives from the region’s largest companies, met monthly to discuss racial issues. The meetings ended in 1998, when Givens and other group members said they were not treated as equal partners in the dialogue.

St. Louis’ racial divide was his only disappointment, he said in his profile.

“We’re doing a lot of good,” he said, “but St. Louis is not going to be a great city until racism is wiped out.”

No matter the obstacle, Givens persevered and willingly shared his optimism and expertise.

From its inception in 1986 and for the next 25 years, Givens chaired the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Statewide Celebration Commission. It became the second-largest celebration in the nation paying tribute to King.

He served as a consultant for the State Department’s American School in Lima, Peru, and was recognized by more than 100 national, state and local organizations for his service.

Proud to be

Henry Givens Jr. was born in St. Louis, the third of Henry Givens Sr. and Catherine Lucille Johnson Givens’ four children. 

His mother was a homemaker whose activities included volunteering with the Pine Street YMCA. The “Y” ran Camp Rivercliff near Bourbon, the first camp in Missouri operated by and for African Americans. It’s where Givens spent his childhood summers.

His father worked multiple jobs to support the family: driving for a printing company, repairing radios and TVs, even deejaying local dances, sometimes assisted by his sons.

The dapper Givens had a singular work path. He said choosing education was his “proudest achievement,” second only to marrying Belma Evans in 1955, and raising their children.

Givens was preceded in death by his parents and siblings, Robert T. Givens Sr., Leon Arthur Givens and Armetta Givens Whitmore.

Survivors include his wife and their two children; a son, Keith Givens of Phoenix; a daughter, Stacy Givens of St. Louis; and three grandchildren.

Memorials would be appreciated to Harris-Stowe State University:http://go.hssu.edu, send to 3026 Laclede Ave., St. Louis, MO 63103, or call 314-340-3366.