Historically black colleges and universities

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Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving African Americans.[1] Most of these institutions were founded during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States.[2] They were primarily founded by Protestant religious groups, until the Second Morill Act of 1890 required educationally segregated states (all in the South) to provide African American, public higher-education schools (i.e. state funded schools) in order to receive the Act's benefits (19, generally larger institutions, fall under this Act).

During the period of racial segregation in the United States, the majority of American institutions of higher education served predominantly white students, and disqualified or limited black American enrollment.[3][4] Later on some universities, either after expanding their inclusion of black people and African Americans into their institutions or gaining the status of minority-serving institution, became predominantly black institutions (PBIs).[5]

For a century after the abolition of American slavery in 1865, almost all colleges and universities in the Southern United States prohibited all African Americans from attending as required by Jim Crow laws in the South, while institutions in other parts of the country regularly employed quotas to limit admissions of black people.[6][7][8][9] HBCUs were established to provide more opportunities to African Americans and are largely responsible for establishing and expanding the African-American middle class.[10][11] In the 1950s and 1960s, enforced racial segregation in education was generally outlawed across the United States.

There are 101 HBCUs in the United States (of 121 institutions that existed during the 1930s), representing three percent of the nation's colleges,[12] including public and private institutions.[13] Twenty-seven offer doctoral programs, 52 offer master's programs, 83 offer bachelor's degree programs, and 38 offer associate degrees.[14][15][16] HBCUs currently produce nearly 20% of all African American college graduates and 25% of African American STEM graduates.[17] Among the graduates of HBCUs are civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and United States Vice President Kamala Harris.

  1. ^ 20 U.S. Code sec.1061, [1] Archived December 20, 2022, at the Wayback Machinehttps://USCode.house.gov Archived December 20, 2022, at the Wayback Machine For a compact overview of HBCU history, see Walter R. Allen, Joseph O. Jewell, Kimberly A. Griffin, & De'Sha S. Wolf, Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Honoring the Past, Engaging the Present, Touching the Future, 76 Journal of Negro Education, pp. 263–280 (2007).
  2. ^ Anderson, J.D. (1988). The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. University of North Carolina Press.
  3. ^ "White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities". U.S. Department of Education. April 11, 2008. Archived from the original on October 5, 2015. Retrieved April 23, 2008.
  4. ^ Wooten, Melissa E. (2016). In the face of inequality. State Univ of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-5690-4. OCLC 946968175.
  5. ^ Jones, Brandy. "Predominantly Black Institutions: Pathways to Black Student Educational Attainment" (PDF). Center for Minority Serving Institutions.
  6. ^ Harris, Leslie M. (March 26, 2015). "The Long, Ugly History of Racism at American Universities". The New Republic.
  7. ^ Marybeth Gasman, Envisioning Black Colleges: A History of the United Negro College Fund (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
  8. ^ Marybeth Gasman and Felecia Commodore (eds.), Opportunities and Challenges at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (New York: Palgrave Press, 2014). ISBN 978-1-349-50267-7
  9. ^ Favors, J. (2020). Shelter in a time of storm: How Black colleges fostered generations of leadership and activism. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-4833-0
  10. ^ "The story of historically black colleges in the US". BBC News. February 15, 2019.
  11. ^ "Despite Obstacles, Black Colleges Are Pipelines to the Middle Class, Study Finds. Here's Its List of the Best". The Chronicle of Higher Education. September 30, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  12. ^ "African Americans and College Education by the Numbers". UNCF. November 29, 2018. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
  13. ^ "A look at historically black colleges and universities as Howard turns 150". Pewresearch.org. February 28, 2017. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  14. ^ "Historically Black Colleges and Universities – American School Search". American-school-search.com. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  15. ^ Marybeth Gasman, The Changing Face of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Philadelphia: Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, University of Pennsylvania, 2013. [ISBN missing]
  16. ^ Casey Boland, Marybeth Gasman et al., Contemporary Public HBCUs: A Four State Comparison, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2014. [ISBN missing]
  17. ^ "The Tide That Binds: Learning from Experience at HBCU's". November 8, 2022.