[6] That same year, the university became the first academic institution to receive the 2018 Crystal Apple Award from the Partnership for a Healthier America for its campus wellness initiatives.

[6][7] Oakwood University has its origins in the post-Civil and post-slavery effort to fund higher education for African-Americans who had been freed in the South.

[8][3] In response to the counsel of SDA Church co-founder Ellen G. White,[3] a committee was appointed by the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to buy property and create a school that offers vocational education and spiritual direction to African-American students.

[10][12] Solon Marquis Jacobs served as the school's first principal beginning in 1896, and in 1917, James Irving Beardsley was appointed the first president.

[12] In 1931, after years of student complaints about school conditions—including "heavy work schedules, low wages, the inability to accumulate academic credit due to the workloads" and racial segregation on campus—students went on strike, petitioning for better conditions, liberal arts programs, more African American faculty members and an African American president.

In 1932, after student strikers held a series of pep rallies, speeches and worship gatherings and sent a letter to the General Conference petitioning for change, the General Conference recruited more African Americans to Oakwood's faculty, making it predominantly African American.

Additionally, the General Conference first invited two of Oakwood's white professors to become president in response to the strikes and petitions.

Although Moran became president, the General Conference asserted that a white man would manage the school's business affairs and serve as the liaison between the school board and the General Conference, two roles typically held by the president of a higher education institution.

[11] Due to the conservative ideologies of the SDA Church, students' initial involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was restrained.

Also, their access to news outlets such as radio and television was restricted and completely banned in dormitories, limiting their awareness of ongoing events related to the civil rights movement.

[3][11][14] The Church and the South's expectations for women hindered female students' freedom to choose to participate in civil resistance events, if they desired to do so.

Through the three-year agreement, SAIC continued to provide Oakwood with technology enhancement, contract management and business administration support and would also begin offering technical and engineering internships to students.

[24] At the 2008 Honda Campus All-Star Challenge National Championship Tournament in Orlando, Florida, Oakwood University team members brought home the trophy.

In addition to winning the championship, Oakwood University received a grant of $50,000 from the American Honda Motor Company.

[28] On January 20, 2022, Oakwood got an invitation to join the GCAC, along with Wiley College and the return of Southern University at New Orleans, effective beginning in July 2022.

[30] The Ambassadors men's basketball team won the university's fourth title in 2019 with a 58–57 win against Bluefield State.