WE REMEMBER | College President, CIAA Hall of Famer Charles Lyons Jr., Shaw ’49

Dr. Charles Lyons, former chancellor (left), with Dr. William T. Brown (right).

Dr. Charles Lyons Jr., who led Fayetteville State University for nearly two decades, has died, according to the university.

Dr. Lyons was named chancellor of FSU in 1969 and served in that post until 1987. The school said he died [last] Friday morning in Florida, where he had been battling an unspecified illness.

“Under his tenure, we became Fayetteville State University and a constituent institution of The University of North Carolina,” university spokesman Jeff Womble said in a news release. “Among his many accomplishments at FSU were the granting of master’s degrees, a program office at Fort Bragg and significant capital expansion with six new buildings.”

The Lyons Science Building on FSU’s campus is named for the former chancellor.

H/T to Fayetteville Observer

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Dr. Crystal A. deGregory is a historian, storyteller, and convener whose work centers the power of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the lives of Black women and girls. She is the founder of HBCUstory and editor-in-chief of The Journal of HBCU Research + Culture, as well as Founding Director of the Mary McLeod Bethune Institute for the Study of Women and Girls at Bethune-Cookman University. A trusted architect of public history and cultural memory, she created the Bethune at 150 Syllabus and convened the 2025 Southern Association for Women Historians Triennial Meeting, where she was named the organization’s first-ever Honorary Lifetime Member. Through her forthcoming platform Her Due, deGregory advances overdue recognition for women’s labor, leadership, and legacy. Known for transforming history into strategy, she builds spaces where scholarship fuels equity, culture, and community. Follow her @HBCUstorian.

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