Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically Black colleges and universities are institutions created under the laws of segregation and prior to 1964 with the express purpose of educating African Americans. From their arrival on the shores of the United States, Black people have thirsted for knowledge and viewed education as the key to their freedom. These enslaved people pursued various forms of education despite rules, in all southern states, barring them from learning to read and write. A few Black colleges appeared immediately prior to the Civil War, such as Lincoln and Cheyney Universities in Pennsylvania and Wilberforce in Ohio. With the end of the Civil War the daunting task of providing education to [Page 1070]more than four million formerly enslaved people was shouldered by both the federal government, through the Freedman's Bureau, and many northern church missionaries. As early as 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau began establishing Black colleges, resulting in staff and teachers with primarily military backgrounds. During the post-bellum period, most Black colleges were colleges in name only—like most historically White colleges, starting with Harvard, these institutions generally provided primary and secondary education during the first decades of their existence.

As noted, religious missionary organizations—some affiliated with northern White denominations such as the Baptists and Congregationalists and some with Black churches such as the African Methodist Episcopal and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion—were actively working with the Freedmen's Bureau. Two of the most prominent White organizations were the American Baptist Home Mission Society and the American Missionary Association, but there were many others as well. White northern missionary societies founded Black colleges such as Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. The benevolence of the missionaries was tinged with self-interest and sometimes racism. Their goals in establishing these colleges were to Christianize people newly freed from slavery (i.e., convert formerly enslaved people to their brand of Christianity) and to rid the country of the “menace” of uneducated African Americans. Among the colleges founded by Black denominations were Morris Brown in Georgia, Paul Quinn in Texas, and Allen University in South Carolina. Unique among American colleges, these institutions were founded by African Americans for African Americans. Because these institutions relied on less support from Whites they were able to design their own curricula. However, they also were more vulnerable to economic instability.

With the passage of the second Morrill Act in 1890, the federal government again took an interest in Black education, establishing public Black colleges. This act stipulated that those states practicing segregation in their public colleges and universities would forfeit federal funding unless they established agricultural and mechanical institutions for the Black population. Despite the wording of the Morrill Act, which called for the equitable division of federal funds, these newly founded institutions received less funding than their White counterparts and thus had inferior facilities. Among the 17 new land grant colleges were institutions such as Florida Agricultural and Technical University and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University.

At the end of the 19th century, private Black colleges had exhausted funding from missionary sources. Simultaneously, a new form of support emerged, that of White northern industrial philanthropy. Among the leaders of industry who initiated this type of support were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, and John Slater. These industry captains were motivated by both Christian benevolence and a desire to control all forms of industry. The organization making the largest contribution to Black education was the General Education Board (GEB), a conglomeration of northern White philanthropists, established by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., but spearheaded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Between 1903 and 1964, the GEB gave more than $63,000,000 to Black colleges, an impressive figure, but nonetheless only a fraction of what it gave to White institutions. Regardless of their personal motivations, the funding system that these industrial moguls created showed a strong tendency to control Black education for their benefit and to produce graduates who were skilled in the trades that served their own enterprises, commonly known as industrial education. Above all, the educational institutions they supported were extremely careful not to upset the segregationist power structure that ruled the South by the 1890s.

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