The Higher Education Act of1965, drafted on Nov. 8, defines a Historically Black College and
University as “…any historicallyblack college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principalmission was and is, the education of black Americans…”
HBCUs have ascended from meagerbeginnings into successful institutions that have been responsible foreducating some of the most successful and accomplished people in black history.
According to the HBCU network,which is an internet resource dedicated to providing information on blackcolleges and universities, 14 percent of the United States black studentsattend HBCUs. Nearly 25 percent of all black students are enrolled at four-yearinstitutions.
The majority of the 105 HBCUsare located in the Southeastern states and they include 40 public four-year, 11public two-year, 49 private four-year and 5 private two-year institutions.
“I feel HBCUs provide the besteducation for the African-American community,” said Kimberly Dunn, a seniorsecondary education major from Port Allen.
Reportedly more blacks attendthem now than at any other time in history and 65 percent of all blackphysicians, 50 percent of all black engineers and 35 percent of all blacklawyers have graduated from HBCUs.
Higher education for blacks wasalmost non-existent before the Civil War. For the few blacks who did receiveeducation, they were often times forced to learn in informal and sometimeshostile settings.
It wasn’t until the 13thAmendment’s abolition of slavery and the reconstruction of the South’spost-Civil War that these circumstances began to change.
The backbone of black highereducation came from the American Missionary Association and foundations likeit, which founded seven black colleges and 13 normal (teaching) schools between1861 and 1870.
Another significant movement inthe education of blacks came from the historical disagreement between civilrights’ activists Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.DuBois.
Washington, a freed slave andfounder of the Tuskegee Institute, believed that the best interests of blackpeople in the post-Reconstruction era could be realized through education inthe crafts and industrialized skills and the cultivation of the virtues ofpatience, enterprise and thrift.
He urged blacks to temporarilyabandon their efforts to win civil rights and instead cultivate theirindustrial and farming skills in order to attain economic security.
DuBois, a Fisk Universitygraduate, took a different view on how blacks should be educated.
He believed that it wasessential that blacks received training not only in vocational fields, but alsoin the liberal arts. DuBois believed that Washington’s policy of vocationaltraining only perpetuated the idea of slavery for blacks.
Through the study of arts andscience, DuBois felt talented blacks would then serve a sense of purpose insociety and deserve equal treatment from whites.
Another major challenge HBCUsfaced came after the Great Depression and World War II, when many blackcolleges were left in financial crisis.
In 1943, the President of theTuskegee Institute, Dr. Fredrick D. Patterson, published an open letter to allHBCU presidents urging them to band together and pool their resources to gainfinances.
The following year, the UnitedNegro College Fund began its activities to solicit donations with a greatereffectiveness, but the organization’s cause only supported private blackcolleges.
Funding for public HBCUs beganten-years later after the Supreme Court’s ruling of “separate but equal” in thecase Brown v. Board of Education. The court’s decision forced states to betterfund HBCUs.
In 1965, the Higher EducationAct became the vehicle through which the federal government provided betterfunds to black universities and colleges.
Presidents Jimmy Carter, RonaldReagan and George Bush Sr. also felt HBCUs were a significant part of theAmerican society.
Carter established programsaimed at strengthening the capacity of HBCUs, Reagan ordered Congress toincrease federal funding and his successor, Bush, issued an order to establisha commission in the Department of Education responsible for advising thepresident on matters regarding historically black colleges and universities.
Dunn said she feels that knowingthe history of HBCUs should be important to students.
“It shows there was a fight andstruggle to obtain HBCUs,” Dunn said.
Critics feel that black collegesprovide a unique education for blacks because the students who attend themgraduate with a greater frequency than black students enrolled in whiteuniversities.
“Coming to an HBCU can givestudents a false sense that the world is black when it’s predominantly white,”said LaKendra Turner, a junior political science major from Moreauville. “Butit also gives you the reality that African-Americans are doing somethingpositive in society.”
