19th century Shortly after the end of the
American Civil War, members of the First Congregational Society of Washington considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of black clergymen. Within a few weeks, the project expanded to include a provision for establishing a university. Within two years, the university consisted of the colleges of liberal arts and medicine. The new institution was named for General
Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War hero who was both the founder of the university and, at the time, commissioner of the
Freedmen's Bureau. Howard later served as president of the university from 1869 to 1874. The U.S. Congress chartered Howard on March 2, 1867, and much of its early funding came from endowment, private benefaction and tuition. (In the 20th and 21st centuries, an annual congressional appropriation, administered by the
U.S. Department of Education, funds Howard University and Howard University Hospital.) Many improvements were made on campus. Howard Hall was renovated and made a dormitory for women.
20th century From 1926 to 1960, preacher
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson was Howard University's first African-American president. The Great Depression years of the 1930s brought hardship to campus. Despite appeals from
Eleanor Roosevelt, Howard saw its budget cut below Hoover administration levels during the
presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the 1930s, Howard University still had segregated student housing. Howard University played an important role in the
Civil Rights Movement on a number of occasions.
Alain Locke, chair of the Department of Philosophy and first African American
Rhodes Scholar, authored
The New Negro (1925), which helped to usher in the
Harlem Renaissance.
Ralph Bunche, the first
Nobel Peace Prize winner of African descent, served as chair of the Department of
Political Science. Beginning in 1942, Howard University students pioneered the "stool-sitting" technique of occupying stools at a local cafeteria which denied service to African Americans, blocking other customers waiting for service. This tactic was to play a prominent role in the later
Civil Rights Movement. By January 1943, students had begun to organize regular sit-ins and pickets around Washington, D.C. at cigar stores and cafeterias which refused to serve them because of their race. These protests continued until the fall of 1944.
Stokely Carmichael, also known as
Kwame Ture, a student in the Department of
Philosophy and the Howard University
School of Divinity, coined the term "
Black Power" and worked in
Lowndes County, Alabama as a
voting rights activist. Historian
Rayford Logan served as chair of the Department of
History.
E. Franklin Frazier served as chair of the Department of
Sociology.
Sterling Allen Brown served as chair of the Department of
English. The first sitting president to speak at Howard was
Calvin Coolidge in 1924. His graduation speech was entitled, "The Progress of a People", and highlighted the accomplishments to date of African-Americans since the Civil War. His concluding thought was, "We can not go out from this place and occasion without refreshment of faith and renewal of confidence that in every exigency our Negro fellow citizens will render the best and fullest measure of service whereof they are capable." In 1965, President
Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech to the graduating class at Howard, where he outlined his plans for civil rights legislation and endorsed aggressive
affirmative action to combat the effects of years of segregation of blacks from the nation's economic opportunities. At the time, the
voting rights bill was still pending in the House of Representatives. is one of the oldest law schools in the United States. In 1975, the historic
Freedman's Hospital closed after 112 years of use as
Howard University College of Medicine's primary teaching hospital. Howard University Hospital opened that same year and continues to be used as HUCM's primary teaching hospital, with service to the surrounding community. Also in 1975,
Jeanne Sinkford became the first female dean of any American dental school when she was appointed as the dean of Howard University's school of dentistry. In 1989, Howard gained national attention when students rose up in protest against the appointment of then-Republican National Committee Chairman
Lee Atwater as a new member of the university's board of trustees. Student activists disrupted Howard's 122nd-anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Howard's president,
James E. Cheek, resigned.
21st century In April 2007, the head of the faculty senate called for the ouster of Howard University President
H. Patrick Swygert, saying the school was in a state of crisis, and it was time to end "an intolerable condition of incompetence and dysfunction at the highest level." This came on the heels of several criticisms of Howard University and its management. The following month, Swygert announced he would retire in June 2008. The university announced in May 2008 that
Sidney Ribeau of
Bowling Green State University would succeed Swygert as president. Ribeau appointed a Presidential Commission on Academic Renewal to conduct a year-long self-evaluation that resulted in reducing or closing 20 out of 171 academic programs. For example, they proposed closing the undergraduate philosophy major and African studies major. Two months later, the university's Council of Deans alleged "fiscal mismanagement is doing irreparable harm," blaming the university's senior vice president for administration, chief financial officer and treasurer and asking for his dismissal. In October, the faculty voted no confidence in the university's board of trustees executive committee, two weeks after university president Sidney A. Ribeau announced he would retire at the end of the year. On October 1, the Board of Trustees named
Wayne A. I. Frederick interim president. In July 2014 Howard's Board of Trustees named Frederick as the school's 17th president. In May 2016, President
Barack Obama delivered a commencement address at Howard University encouraging the graduates to become advocates for racial change and to prepare for future challenges. In 2018, nearly 1,000 students held a
sit-in demanding injunction over the administration's use of funding, after a
Medium post revealed that six university employees had been fired for "double dipping" financial aid and tuition remission. The university had discovered the fraud the previous year, but had not publicly disclosed the loss; 131 individuals were involved in some form, with the top 50 recipients accounting for 90% of the total, and the five most reimbursed individuals receiving $689,375 in refunds. After the student protest ended, faculty voted "no confidence" in the university president, chief operating officer, provost, and board of trustees. The nine-day protest ended with university officials promising to meet most of their demands. It also led to an investigation by the Department of Education, which placed the university on
heightened cash monitoring, an increased form of scrutiny relating to the disbursement of student financial aid. This monitoring status was rescinded in December of the following year. In May 2021, the university announced that the newly re-established college of fine arts, led by Dean
Phylicia Rashad, would be named the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts for the
actor and distinguished alum who from his days as a student in the late 1990s through his death from cancer in 2020 led protests against the 1997 absorption of the College of Fine Arts into the College of Arts & Sciences. In October 2021, a group of students protested the mold, mice, and substandard conditions in campus residential buildings in the
Blackburn Takeover, demanding an improvement in the living situation and representation on the board of trustees. In 2023, Howard University issued a $300 million tax-exempt bond to tackle the housing woes, as part of a $785 million investment to renovate and construct academic centers. In March 2022, Howard University announced that it will spend $785 million over the next four years to construct new STEM complex, academic buildings to house the Chadwick Boseman School of Fine Arts, and the Cathy Hughes School of Communications, as well as renovate other buildings on campus. In 2023, Howard University was selected by the Department of the Air Force to lead a research center on tactical autonomy technology for military systems. In February 2025, Howard University became the first HBCU to achieve
Research One (R1) Carnegie Classification. In November 2025,
MacKenzie Scott donated an $80 million gift to Howard—one of the largest donations in the school's history. ==Campus==