Black Colleges, Founding of

The end of the Civil War forced the United States to grapple with integrating Black freedmen and freedwomen into the social order, and reformers turned to education as the primary mechanism through which that integration would occur. This entry describes the diverse values that shaped Black colleges founded in the decades following the Civil War. It also examines the ways in which those values were shaped by the individuals and organizations who contributed financial support for their establishment.

The Reconstruction Era constitutions of southern states mandated the creation of schools for all youth, and the newly created Black colleges focused on teacher training to staff the Black elementary and secondary schools in the various states. Because these colleges had the responsibility of educating these teachers and the future leaders of the race, their curriculum and educational missions were hotly contested issues. Educational reformers understood that the debate was not merely a difference in opinion on particular curricular offerings. Rather, ideas on the proper education of the Black intelligentsia revealed different conceptions of Black citizenship.

On one side were Black and White liberals on racial issues who believed that the classical curriculum provided a discipline of the mind that would enable Black leaders to guide the rest of the Black community to freedom and full political and civic equality. On the other were Black and White conservatives who argued that the future leaders needed to be taught practical knowledge, industrious work habits, and Christian morals through a manual training program. This type of education would socialize them to accept their disenfranchisement and make them better workers, something they could then teach the rest of the Black masses. Black colleges in each southern state and the District of Columbia reflected the range of ideological positions on the question of Black education and place in society, and their ideological positions closely mirrored the type of funding they received.