Historically Black College and University

“ Fifty years ago the ability of Negro students in any appreciable numbers to master a modern college course would have been difficult to prove. To-day it is proved by the fact that four hundred Negroes, many of whom have been reported as brilliant students, have received the bachelor’s degree from Harvard, Yale, Oberlin, and seventy other leading colleges. ”

“ We need a few strong, well-equipped Negro colleges, and we need them now, not to-morrow; unless we can have them and have them decently supported, Negro education in the South, both common-school and industrial, is doomed to failure, and the forces of social regeneration will be fatally weakened, for the college to-day among Negroes is, just as truly as it was yesterday among whites, the beginning and not the end of human training, the foundation and not the cap-stone of popular education. ”

“ Because of persistent racial and systemic injustices in our Nation, Black students remain more likely to attend high-poverty and racially segregated schools than White students. Black students are inequitably disciplined and suspended from school at disproportionately higher rates than White students for similar offenses. In addition, Black students too often face limited access to advanced and college-preparatory courses. Systemic racial disparities in education negatively impact learning outcomes for Black students and many face persistent gaps in reading and mathematics achievement. ”

“ But, however divergent the views of different people may be upon these questions, there certainly is no immediate occasion for a howl against the higher education of the Negro, for there is not enough of it to feed the flames of a respectable controversy. Only a fraction of the so-called universities south of Washington open to colored students have a collegiate course of study, and the entire number of graduates from such a course can be expressed by two ciphers and a small significant figure. What are a hundred or two of college graduates among six or seven millions of people? ”

“ American ideals could not be fostered in the white youth of our land by sending them to Oxford or Berlin for tuition. No more can the Negro gain racial inspiration from Harvard or Yale. And yet they need the benefit of contact and comparison, and the zeal for knowledge and truth which these great institutions impart. The Negro College and the Northern institutions will serve to preserve a balance between undue elation for want of sober comparison, and barren culture, for lack of inspirational contact with the masses.
DOES THE HIGHER EDUCATION LEAD AWAY FROM THE RACE? ”

“ The better off of the Negroes send their sons to Northern white colleges where they may receive the best instruction but have little contact with their fellow students. So far from the number of negro college graduates being too great, it is entirely too small for the immediate needs of the race. They must have educated teachers and trained professional men; the negro schools will never flourish without competent teachers and supervisors of the negro race. In many respects the colleges are the weakest part of negro education. ”

“ The policy of maintaining mixed faculties, however, is not dictated entirely by the lack of men and women of color competent to fill all positions on the faculty; for today the supply of such material is adequate. It seems that the governing body considers it in the best interest of the University to preserve the racial mixture in the offices and faculties in order that the students may receive the peculiar contribution of both races and that the institution may have its interests concretely connected with those of the dominant race. ”

“ On the foundation of emancipation in the aftermath of the Civil War, historically Black colleges have erected an impressive edifice of educational experience and excellence. Their legacy of learning and their sustained success will surely remain a tribute to their students, staffs, graduates, and friends and a blessing for every American in the years to come. ”

“ And this the common schools and the manual training and trade schools are working to accomplish. But these alone are not enough. The foundations of knowledge in this race, as in others, must be sunk deep in the college and university if we would build a solid, permanent structure. Internal problems of social advance must inevitably come, —problems of work and wages, of families and homes, of morals and the true valuing of the things of life; and all these and other inevitable problems of civilization the Negro must meet and solve largely for himself, by reason of his isolation ”

“ The Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day above all else. This is the concurrent testimony of all who know the situation. For the supply of this great demand two things are needed—institutions of higher education and money for school houses and salaries. It is usually assumed that a hundred or more institutions for Negro training are to-day turning out so many teachers and college-bred men that the race is threatened with an over-supply. This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day less than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in the United States, and less than 1,000 Negroes in college. ”

“ It will demand broad-minded, upright men both white and black, and in its final accomplishment American civilization will triumph. So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education seems imminent. But the very voices that cry Hail! to this good work are, strange to relate, largely silent or antagonistic to the higher education of the Negro. ”

“ It is not a matter of mere emphasis, for we would be glad to see ten industrial schools to every college. It is not a fact that there are to-day too few Negro colleges, but rather that there are too many institutions attempting to do [504] college work. But the danger lies in the fact that the best of the Negro colleges are poorly equipped and are to-day losing support and countenance, and that, unless the nation awakens to its duty, ten years will see the annihilation of higher Negro training in the South. ”

“ At the same time the Committee is aware that, if Harvard College is to provide a truly heterogen [e] ous environment that reflects the rich diversity of the United States, it cannot be provided without some attention to numbers. It would not make sense, for example, to have 10 or 20 students out of 1, 100 whose homes are west of the Mississippi. Comparably, 10 or 20 black students could not begin to bring to their classmates and to each other the variety of points of view, backgrounds and experiences of blacks in the United States. ”

“ And to-day the institute is filled with college graduates, from the energetic wife of the principal down to the teacher of agriculture, including nearly half of the executive council and a majority of the heads of departments. In the professions, college men are slowly but surely leavening the Negro church, are healing and preventing the devastations of disease, and beginning to furnish legal protection for the liberty and property of the toiling masses. ”

“ Washington's insight cannot see that no such educational system ever has rested or can rest on any other basis than that of the well-equipped college and university, and they insist that there is a demand for a few such institutions throughout the South to train the best of the Negro youth as teachers, professional men, and leaders. ”

“ If the ratio of colored population in secondary and higher education is to be equal to the average for the whole country, it must be increased to five times its present average." And if this be true of the secondary and higher education, it is safe to say that the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in college studies. How baseless, therefore, is the charge of too much training! We need Negro teachers for the Negro common schools, and we need first-class normal schools and colleges to train them. This is the work of higher Negro education and it must be done. ”

“ Black students are still below the national average for educational attainment in high school, and that gap is even higher for college attainment rates, as 26 percent of Black Americans ages 25 and older have attained a bachelor’s degree, while the national average is 36 percent. Black students also face unique challenges at the intersection of race and gender. Barriers to equity in education can compound for Black students who are also LGBTQ+ students, English-language learners, Dreamers, or students with disabilities. ”

“ If it is true that there are an appreciable number of Negro youth in the land capable by character and talent to receive that higher training, the end of which is culture, and if the two and a half thousand who have had something of this training in the past have in the main proved themselves useful to their race and generation, the question then comes, What place in the future development of the South ought the Negro college and college-bred man to occupy? ”