Clark Atlanta University
Georgia
1988
Formed from a 1988 merger between Atlanta University (1865) and Clark University (1869)
In 1892, a member of the Atlanta University baseball team who admired the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested that the university adopt crimson and gray as the colors of the university. The light shade of the university’s gray was sometimes described as “steel gray”.
The school colors of Clark College were crimson and black, but information about how and when these colors were selected is not available at this time.
The school colors of Clark Atlanta University are crimson, black, and gray.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year):
Atlanta University: steel gray/cardinal (1897); steel gray/crimson (1900-1910); gray/crimson (1911-1935)
Clark College: crimson/black (1917-1918); red/black (1923-1935)
Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927, 1948, and 1972 described Atlanta University as having a hood lined “Harvard crimson” (or simply “crimson”) with a gray chevron. The same IBAC lists described the hood lining of Clark College as red with a black chevron.
To reflect the 1988 merger of the two institutions, Clark Atlanta University adopted a hood lined crimson with a bi-chevron, black above gray. The shade of gray is light.