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The College of Agriculture at North Carolina A&T State University recently held a dedication ceremony for the Arthur P. Bell Conference Room at the A&T Farm Pavilion on McConnell Road in Greensboro. The conference room is named in memory of Dr. Arthur P. Bell, a beloved professor and chairman emeritus of Agricultural Education at North Carolina A&T State University, who passed away on October 13, 2024. On hand for the celebration were Bell’s adult children: Dr. Benita Bell, Dr. Calvin Arthur Bell and Bernard Bell, members of Dr. Bell’s extended family, former colleagues and students, A&T Alumni and friends.
Arthur Bell grew up on a farm in Reidsville, N.C. (Rockingham County). As a youth enrolled at Booker T. Washington High School, he participated in New Farmers of America (NFA), a program sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for African American males in the segregated South. At the time, Black people were not permitted to be members of the all-White Future Farmers of America (FFA).
While a student at A&T, Bell served as president of the AgEd Association, the second-largest organization on campus. According to Bell’s family, his academic career took a detour due to WWII. While Bell was an A&T student, President Ferdinand Bluford wanted to write a letter to the U.S. government to have Bell exempted from military service based on Bell’s agricultural expertise in milk production. Such a skill was considered a vital national commodity during the war. However, Bell’s primary interest and expertise was in ice cream production and not milk and he knew he would be heading into military service.
Bell served his country as a member of the U.S. Army’s 257th Quartermaster Company in Marseilles, France, and Okinawa, Japan earning a Bronze Star, a Victory Medal, and a Good Conduct Medal. Upon his return from service, he graduated from A&T with honors in 1948.
While his expertise in ice cream could not keep him off the battlefields of WWII, it helped catapult Bell to graduate school at Penn State University, where he earned a Master of Science in Agricultural Education in 1954 and a Doctorate in Education in 1966.
Dr. Benita Bell, a chemist and nutritionist, quoted her late mother, Queen Hester Bell, who once said, “Impact is more important than impression. And when you make an impact, by default you will make an impression.” According to all who knew him, Dr. A. P. Bell definitely made an impact on the world.
Dr. Bell returned to A&T as an assistant professor of agriculture in 1957. He became a full professor and chairman of the Department of Agricultural Education in 1967. During his tenure at A&T, Dr. Bell served as president of the Faculty Senate and on the university’s Board of Trustees.
Under Bell’s leadership, the Department of Agricultural Education received national recognition and expanded its concentrations to include agricultural engineering and agricultural economics. In 1973, the department was inducted into the Alpha Tau Alpha National Professional Fraternity. Via the National Association of Agricultural Education, Dr. Bell championed the enhancement of agricultural programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Dr. Bell advised many student groups and programs, such as USDA’s Vocational Education Graduate Leadership Development Program and the Institute for Future Agricultural Leaders (IFAL). He also led groups to study agricultural systems in Tanzania and Kenya. He published and presented his research at New Farmers of America conferences and mentored scores of undergraduate and graduate students in agricultural education until his retirement in 1994. Dr. Bell was inducted into the Hall of Fame at N.C. A&T in 2016 and he was the recipient of the state of North Carolina’s highest honor in the field of agriculture.
Dr. Bell’s son, Bernard Bell, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at UNC Chapel Hill, said his father believed it was important to be of service to others; to have perseverance, integrity and to be a man of faith.
Dr. Bell was steadfast about the preservation of agricultural education history, and he was the primary force in preserving the legacy of the New Farmers of America and A&T’s role in the field of agriculture.
Dr. Velma Speight Buford, an A&T alumna, former president of the A&T National Alumni Association, past chairperson of the university’s Board of Trustees and a colleague of Dr. Bell’s told dedication ceremony attendees that were it not for Dr. Bell’s work to archive documents on the history of Black Farmers in the U.S. and New Farmers of America, books on the subject such as, “The Legacy of New Farmers of America” would be incomplete.
James Stewart, an archives and special collections librarian at A&T’s F.D. Bluford Library, said Dr. Bell’s meticulous archiving consisted of more than 150,000 items, culminating in the largest collection of materials on African American farmers, agricultural and vocational education documents in the United States.
Dr. Bell’s legacy lives on and his body of work is accessible to A&T students and future scholars at the university in perpetuity.
In a tribute to his late father, Dr. Calvin Bell, a cardiologist in Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “Our family realizes the shoulders that we stand on.”
To learn more about the College of Agriculture at North Carolina A&T State University, visit: https://www.ncat.edu/caes/index.php.
Editors note: A correction was made on Feb. 20, 2025. The print version of this article incorrectly attributed a quote to Dr. Antoine Alston, Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture at N.C.A&T State University, and has been corrected in the story.
