Excerpt:
Let me begin with a very brief historical overview because it helps us, I think, to understand the present status of the black colleges and universities and the public policies affecting them.
With two exceptions—Lincoln and Wilberforce Universities—the black colleges and universities were established after the Civil War. They were established, in the main, by three different groups: The predominantly white northern church denominations and organizations, the black church denominations and the southern states.
The white northern denominations and organizations established the majority colleges and universities during the first decade following the war, 1865-1875. Included in this group of institutions were Atlanta University, Fisk, Howard, Johnson C. Smith, Shaw University, St. Augustine’s, Talledega, Virginia Union, among others.
It is important to recall that when the Civil War ended, 96 percent of the 4 million newly freed blacks were illiterate and that there were no schools to provide the college preparatory work. The newly established institutions were thus colleges and universities in name only – the hopes and dreams of their founders. They had pitifully few facilities, having begun their work in churches, hospital barracks, abandoned railroad cars and various other temporary accommodations.
Instruction in these institutions necessarily began at the elementary school level. But most of these institutions went on to develop academies to provide college preparatory work. These academies were gradually phased out as black public schools were established. This did not occur on any large scale until the 1920’s and 30’s. I am, for example, a 1930 graduate of the Hampton Institute Academy, in next to its last class.
Source Citation:
Wright, Stephen J. 1987. “Historical Background and Future Prospects of Black Colleges and Universities” (Speech). In Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education, edited by John R. Thelin, 96-105. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.