Rufus Ballad Atwood (1897—1983) was an American educator, academic administrator, and university president.
[citation needed] He attended Fisk Academy and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1920 with a bachelor's degree in biology after interrupting his studies to serve a volunteer enlistment in the United States Army during World War I,[4] where he received a Bronze Star Award.
[6] In 1923, Atwood became professor (and later dean) of agriculture at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College in Texas, and in 1929 he accepted the presidency of Kentucky State College for Colored Persons where he remained until 1962, gaining the title of the longest-serving president of Kentucky State University for his 33 years of service.
Five months after the May 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation, Kentucky State enrolled its first white student.
[7] Kentucky State University's Atwood Institute for Race, Education, and the Democratic Ideal is named for him.