was founded in 1837 as the
Institute for Colored Youth, making it the oldest HBCU in the nation.
Medical schools Following the release of the
Flexner Report, "five of the seven Black medical schools in the United States were forced to close, leaving only
Howard and
Meharry."
Private institutions HBCUs established prior to the American Civil War include
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in 1837,
Avery College in 1849,
University of the District of Columbia (then known as Miner School for Colored Girls) in 1851,
Lincoln University PA in 1854, and
Wilberforce University in 1856. HBCUs were controversial in their early years. At the
1847 National Convention of Colored People and Their Friends, the famed Black orators
Frederick Douglass,
Henry Highland Garnet, and
Alexander Crummell debated the need for such institutions, with Crummell arguing that HBCUs were necessary to provide freedom from discrimination, and Douglass and Garnet arguing that self-segregation would harm the black community. A majority of the convention voted that HBCUs should be supported. Most HBCUs were established in the
South after the
American Civil War, often with the assistance of religious missionary organizations based in the North, especially the
American Missionary Association. The
Freedmen's Bureau played a major role in financing the new schools. Atlanta University – now
Clark Atlanta University – was founded on September 19, 1865, as the first HBCU in the Southern United States. Atlanta University was the first graduate institution to award degrees to African Americans in the nation and the first to award bachelor's degrees to African Americans in the South; Clark College (1869) was the nation's first four-year liberal arts college to serve African-American students. The two consolidated in 1988 to form Clark Atlanta University.
Shaw University, founded December 1, 1865, was the second HBCU to be established in the South. The year 1865 also saw the foundation of
Storer College (1865–1955) in
Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Some of these universities eventually became public universities with assistance from the government.
Public institutions In 1862, the federal government's
Morrill Act provided for
land grant colleges in each state. Educational institutions established under the Morrill Act in the
North and
West were open to Black Americans. But 17 states, almost all in the South, required their post-Civil war systems to be segregated and excluded Black students from their land grant colleges. In the 1870s, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina each assigned one African American college land-grant status:
Alcorn University,
Hampton Institute, and
Claflin University, respectively. In response, Congress passed the
second Morrill Act of 1890, also known as the
Agricultural College Act of 1890, requiring states to establish a separate land grant college for Black students if they were being excluded from the existing land grant college. Many of the HBCUs were founded by states to satisfy the Second Morrill Act. These land grant schools continue to receive annual federal funding for their research,
extension, and outreach activities. While PBIs are, by definition, not HBCUs, these institutions share a common affinities like Divine Nine organizations and membership in associations like the United Negro College Fund.
Sports In the 1920s and 1930s, historically Black colleges developed a strong interest in athletics. Sports were expanding rapidly at state universities, but very few Black stars were recruited there. Race newspapers hailed athletic success as a demonstration of racial progress. Black schools hired coaches, recruited and featured stellar athletes, and set up their own leagues.
Jewish refugees In the 1930s, many Jewish intellectuals fleeing Europe after the rise of
Hitler and
anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany following Hitler's elevation to power emigrated to the United States and found work teaching in historically Black colleges. In particular, 1933 was a challenging year for many Jewish academics who tried to escape increasingly oppressive Nazi policies, In the US, they hoped to continue their academic careers, but barring a scant few (see
Jewish quota in U.S. institutions), found little acceptance in elite institutions in
Depression-era America, which also had their own undercurrent of
antisemitism. As a result of these phenomena, more than two-thirds of the faculty hired at many HBCUs from 1933 to 1945 had come to the United States to escape from Nazi Germany. HBCUs believed the Jewish professors were valuable faculty that would help strengthen their institutions' credibility. HBCUs had a firm belief in diversity and giving opportunity no matter the race, religion, or country of origin. HBCUs were open to Jews because of their ideas of equal learning spaces. They sought to create an environment where all people felt welcome to study, including women.
Florida's Black junior colleges After the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, the legislature of Florida, with support from various counties, opened eleven
junior colleges serving the African American population. Their purpose was to show that
separate but equal education was working in Florida. Prior to this, there had been only one junior college in Florida serving African Americans,
Booker T. Washington Junior College, in Pensacola, founded in 1949. The new ones were
Gibbs Junior College (1957),
Roosevelt Junior College (1958),
Volusia County Junior College (1958),
Hampton Junior College (1958),
Rosenwald Junior College (1958),
Suwannee River Junior College (1959),
Carver Junior College (1960),
Collier-Blocker Junior College (1960),
Lincoln Junior College (1960),
Jackson Junior College (1961), and
Johnson Junior College (1962). The new junior colleges began as extensions of Black high schools. They used the same facilities and often the same faculty. Some built their own buildings after a few years. After the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated an end to
school segregation, the colleges were all abruptly closed. Only a fraction of the students and faculty were able to transfer to the previously all-white junior colleges, where they found, at best, an indifferent reception. Part B specifically provides for formula-based grants, calculated based on each institution's Pell grant eligible enrollment, graduation rate, and percentage of graduates who continue post-baccalaureate education in fields where African Americans are underrepresented. Some colleges with a predominantly Black student body are not classified as HBCUs because they were founded (or opened their doors to African Americans) after the implementation of the
Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) rulings by the
U.S. Supreme Court (the court decisions which outlawed
racial segregation of public education facilities) and the Higher Education Act of 1965. In 1980,
Jimmy Carter signed an executive order to distribute adequate resources and funds to strengthen the nation's public and private HBCUs. His executive order created the White House Initiative on historically Black colleges and universities (WHIHBCU), which is a federally funded program that operates within the
U.S. Department of Education. In 1989,
George H. W. Bush continued Carter's pioneering spirit by signing Executive Order 12677, which created the presidential advisory board on HBCUs, to counsel the government and the secretary on the future development of these organizations. Starting in 2001, directors of libraries of several HBCUs began discussions about ways to pool their resources and work collaboratively. In 2003, this partnership was formalized as the
HBCU Library Alliance, "a consortium that supports the collaboration of information professionals dedicated to providing an array of resources designed to strengthen historically Black colleges and Universities and their constituents." In 2015, the Bipartisan Congressional Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)
Caucus was established by U.S. Representatives
Alma S. Adams and
Bradley Byrne. The caucus advocates for HBCUs on
Capitol Hill. , there are over 100 elected politicians who are members of the caucus. ==Current status==