The late Arthur P. Bell set a high standard for those treading his path.
“Dr. Bell is a pioneer, a legend,” said Antoine Alston, associate dean for academics of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) at N.C. A&T State University. “He represented, to me, what it means to be an African American scholar and man. He passed the torch on to me, and I'm going to make sure the torch stays lit," said Alston, who studied under Bell’s tutelage.
Family, friends, faculty and a host of agribusiness and agricultural education students came together recently to honor Bell at a ceremony officially naming the main conference room at the University Farm Pavilion after him, further cementing his legacy on campus.
Bell, a former chair of A&T’s Department of Agricultural Education and professor emeritus, died Oct. 13, 2024. The Reidsville, N.C., native graduated with a bachelor’s degree with honors in agriculture from A&T in 1948. He later earned master’s and doctoral agricultural degrees from Pennsylvania State University.
Bell joined the A&T’s faculty in 1957 and retired in 1994, but he remained active in research, teaching and the preservation of agricultural education history.
He championed increased funding for training African American agriculture teachers and expansion of agriculture vocational programs at both secondary and post-secondary schools. He established the A.P. Bell Scholarship Fund to support agricultural education majors at A&T.
Bell also was active internationally and he headed an A&T research team in East Africa, conducting agricultural assessments in Tanzania and Kenya.
Interim Dean Shirley Hymon-Parker called Bell one of the “founding fathers" of the college.
“As an agricultural educator, he knew the importance of teaching students how to grow healthy, nutritious food and make it available to everyone, including urban and underserved populations; to preserve the environment; and to encourage health and wellness,” she said.
In an interview posted on YouTube last year by Small Farms NC, Bell praised New Farmers of America, the historical counterpart of the then whites-only Future Farmers of America (FFA).
“It opened up avenues for Black boys to get training, get experience, similar to what the white boys would get,” said Bell, who was a member of the organization.
Three generations of agricultural education majors stand outside the conference room named for professor A.P. Bell. From left: Antoine Alston, Ph.D., CAES associate dean for academics; Larry Hartsfield, N.C. A&T agricultural liaison officer; master's degree student Lawren Caldwell; Chastity Warren-English, Ph.D., agricultural education professor; master's degree student Leila Noufal; master's degree student Troy Pippen; master's degree student Cy'Heim McRae; junior Xanaa Meyers; and freshman Jaileea Knight.
Bell collaborated with Antoine Alston, Ph.D., and Netta S. Cox, university librarian and associate professor of library services, to write The Legacy of the New Farmers of America, a book which explores the Black youth organization. Founded in 1935, the organization promoted vocational agriculture education in public schools throughout the South and taught farming skills and leadership and citizenship values to young Black males. It is available on Amazon.
NFA’s first national headquarters was at A&T. Similar in purpose and structure to Future Farmers of America, NFA had more than 58,000 members in 1,000 chapters when it merged with FFA in 1965, a year after the federal Civil Rights Act banned racial segregation.
“Dr. Bell never worked in a climate-controlled room, but he preserved more than a century of Black agricultural data,” said James Stewart, archivist at N.C. A&T’s F.D. Bluford Library. “He felt it was a moral responsibility to keep this history alive.”
A&T has what it believes to be the largest collection of NFA materials to be found anywhere — documents, records, correspondence, banners, medals, photographs and many other items. Much of it has never been seen publicly.
But it’s the students that Bell was most proud of.
“My biggest accomplishment was the development of the young people, the students that came through the program and the contribution they are making now, and have made,” he said in the interview posted last year.
Bell, who was inducted in the CAES’ Hall of Fame in 2017, also credited his own teachers for his success. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for the teachers of vocational agriculture both in high school and in college,” he said.
