I'll Find a Way or Make One: A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities

By Dwayne Ashley, Juan Williams and Ed Bradley

“Filled with history and anecdote . . . a walk through the past and a peek at the future of America through the gift of HBCUs and their graduates.” —Publishers Weekly

A comprehensive and definitive guide to America’s 107 historically black colleges and universities, this commemorative gift book explores the historical, social, and cultural importance of the nation’s HBCUs and celebrates their rich legacy.

Included in this one-of-a-kind collection are:

• Detailed profiles of each HBCU
• Illuminating portraits of distinguished HBCU graduates such as Leontyne Price, Thurgood Marshall, Spike Lee, and Oprah Winfrey
• Little-known anecdotes about pre-Civil War efforts to educate blacks, such as how a white pastor founded what became Lincoln University after his black protégé was excluded from Princeton’s Theological Seminary
• Rare photographs and archival materials featuring the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt addressing students at Howard University

Chronicling the history of education in the African American community, I’ll Find a Way or Make One is not only an unprecedented salute to historically black colleges and universities, but also an indispensable account of some of the most important events of African Americana and American history.

“A touching statement to the glorious tradition HBCUs continue to maintain.” —Philadelphia Tribune



“A fascinating work of great scope and great detail.” —Cincinnati Herald

“The authors provide the historical context for the yearning for education to advance the individual and the race . . . Photographs, historical narrative, and archival materials add to the value of this important resource.” —Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061976933

Book preview

I’ll Find a Way or Make One

A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Juan Williams and Dwayne Ashley

with Shawn Rhea

Photograph by Abdon Daoud Ackad, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States Justice Thurgood Marshall, circa late 1967

To a great American and one of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities’(HBCU) most famous alumni, Thurgood Marshall—a graduate of Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) and Howard University School of Law. A champion, an architect, and a crusader for equal access and open opportunity, Marshall led an extraordinary life dedicated to the transformation of humankind.

Because of his vision and commitment to equality and his willingness to lend his name to the founding of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, his legacy continues to influence thousands of young men and women who aspire to walk in his footsteps.

Contents

List of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Profiled in the Appendix

List of Informational Sidebars

Foreword by Juan Williams

Acknowledgments

Introduction by Ed Bradley

1. Shackled Minds

The citizenship status of African Americans in the American colonies was loosely defined during the country’s infancy. In colonial America, there were free blacks as well as enslaved blacks. But as the colonies began to rely on a slave labor economy, education of blacks was restricted, and even outlawed.

2. Books Before Freedom

The trumpet sounds for war. While white Americans fight over the economics of slavery, black Americans declare war on illiteracy.

3. Yearning and Learning

With the close of the Civil War, 4.4 million free African Americans embark upon an educational journey. Blacks, missionaries, and the federal government work together to create schools.

4. Voices of a People

In search of self-definition, students and faculties of historically black colleges and universities begin to deconstruct the white patriarchal systems and philosophies that govern their schools.

5. The Art of Culture

As the Roaring Twenties begin, historically black colleges and universities represent the vanguard of black middle-class culture and the arts.

6. Season of Threat

HBCUs faced a new threat as the Great Depression, a new world war, and sweeping political changes unsettled the nation. The continued growth and existence of many HBCUs was jeopardized. The major challenge came from the stock market crash of 1929, which ushered in a thirteen-year economic depression. Fewer African Americans can afford college, and HBCUs struggle to keep their doors open in the face of falling enrollments.

7. Manifest Destiny

When the American Missionary Association began establishing HBCUs after the CivilWar, its goal was to train African American leaders who could help the masses of black people gain equality. By the 1950s, HBCU students and alumni had begun to realize their destiny.

8. An Education in Protest

During the 1960s HBCU students educated in the art of nonviolent protest take their tactics from the campuses to the streets and win civil rights battles along the way.

9. Calming the Storm, Healing the Cut

The 1970s found HBCU administrations searching for ways to heal the psychological and financial wounds caused by the radicalism and sweeping changes of the previous decade. Black college presidents also struggled to keep their schools relevant and desirable places of learning for blacks while simultaneously diversifying their appeal to other racial groups during an age of integration.

10. New Day, New Challenges, New Hope

One hundred and seventy-two years after their inception, historically black colleges and universities stand at the crossroad, ready to take on the future.

Appendix: Profiles of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Notes

Bibliography

Illustration Credits

About the Project Team

Searchable Terms

About the Authors

Other Books by Juan Williams

Copyright

About the Publisher

THURGOOD MARSHALL COLLEGE FUND

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) was founded in 1987 to offer scholarship assistance to students attending public black colleges and universities. Since its founding, TMCF has awarded more than $50 million in scholarships and programmatic support to close to 4,500 students attending its forty-five member institutions.

The quest to start a merit-based scholarship fund to support public HBCU students was begun by Dr. N. Joyce Payne, director of the Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges of State University and Land-Grant Colleges (OAPBC) of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, in cooperation with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. She discovered that her alma mater, D.C. Teachers College, was not a member institution of the United Negro College Fund, which aids private HBCUs. Payne enlisted the support of Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court associate justice, who lent his name to the effort. With a vision and Justice Marshall’s blessing, Dr. Payne hit the pavement with Noel Hankin, then of the Miller Brewing Company, Al Smith, of North Carolina A & T State University, and James Parks, formerly of Miller Brewing Company, to form partnerships with corporate executives and educators. Many in the corporate world had to be made aware of the contributions that public black colleges and universities had been making for well over a century. Seventy-seven percent of the students enrolled in a historically black college or university attend one of Thurgood Marshall’s member institutions. Presently TMCF has partnerships with corporations, foundations, and organizations that provide financial support, internships, and job opportunities for deserving graduates.

TMCF has expanded its work to include students before they enter college and after they graduate. Innovative programs with groups like the New York City Summer Employment Program expose students to different career choices through interaction with TMCF corporate partners and Thurgood Marshall scholarship alumni. TMCF has also joined with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve five low-performing high schools and create three new high schools in low-income areas. The National Test Prep Program prepares students for the GRE, GMAT, MCAT, and LSAT tests.

Ninety-eight percent of TMCF scholarship recipients graduate, and 50 percent gain entry into the most prestigious graduate and professional schools. A special scholarship is available to students attending the four historically black law schools. Many of the students who receive financial assistance from the fund would not be able to attend school without these awards.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund is the only national, merit-based scholarship fund for students attending black public colleges and universities. As a result of the fund’s support of African American education, future black leaders are being trained to enter the workforce and make a difference in their communities, the nation, and the world.

Black classroom, Birmingham, Alabama, 1956, by Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks

List of Informational Sidebars

Civil Rights Activism

Theater at HBCUs

African Free School

African Higher Education

African Leaders and HBCUs

African Methodists

American Missionary Association

HBCU Sports and Athletes

Challenges to Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Mary McLeod Bethune

Black Clergy Leaders

HBCU Benefactors

Corporate Leaders and Financiers

Filmmakers

Fisk Jubilee Singers

The Forten Family

Fraternities:

Alpha Kappa Alpha

Alpha Phi Alpha

Delta Sigma Theta

Iota Phi Theta

Kappa Alpha Psi

Omega Psi Phi

Phi Beta Sigma

Sigma Gamma Rho

Zeta Phi Beta

Freedmen’s Bureau

General Oliver Otis Howard

HBCU Art Collections

HBCU Marching Bands

HBCU Grads Have Become Media Superstars

The King Family HBCU Legacy

Legal Cases and HBCUs

Legislative Initiatives

Musicians

Normal Schools

Oprah Winfrey

Penn Center, Formerly Penn Normal, Industrial, and Agricultural School

Unorthodox Fundraiser: Making Pies and Philanthropists

Political Leaders

HBCU Presses

Publishers

Producing Scholars and Public Intellectuals

HBCU-Trained Scientists

Sociologists

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Thurgood Marshall

The United Negro College Fund

Writers

Defunct HBCUs

Baptist Founders of HBCUs

Presbyterian Founders of HBCUs

The Catholic Church

List of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Profiled in the Appendix

Alabama A & M University: Huntsville, Alabama

Alabama State University: Montgomery, Alabama

Albany State University: Albany, Georgia

Alcorn State University: Alcorn State, Mississippi

Allen University: Columbia, South Carolina

Arkansas Baptist College: Little Rock, Arkansas

Barber-Scotia College: Concord, North Carolina

Benedict College: Columbia, South Carolina

Bennett College: Greensboro, North Carolina

Bethune-Cookman College: Daytona Beach, Florida

Bishop State Community College: Mobile, Alabama

Bluefield State College: Bluefield, West Virginia

Bowie State University: Bowie, Maryland

Central State University: Wilberforce, Ohio

Cheyney University: Cheyney: Pennsylvania

Chicago State University: Chicago, Illinois

Claflin College: Orangeburg, South Carolina

Clark Atlanta University: Atlanta, Georgia

Clinton Junior College: Rock Hill, South Carolina

Coahoma Community College: Clarksdale, Mississippi

Concordia College: Selma, Alabama

Coppin State College: Baltimore, Maryland

Delaware State University: Dover, Delaware

Denmark Technical College: Denmark, South Carolina

Dillard University: New Orleans, Louisiana

Edward Waters College: Jacksonville, Florida

Elizabeth City State University: Elizabeth City, North Carolina

Fayetteville State University: Fayetteville, North Carolina

Fisk University: Nashville, Tennessee

Florida A & M University: Tallahassee, Florida

Florida Memorial College: Miami, Florida

Fort Valley State College: Fort Valley, Georgia

Fredd State Technical College [See Shelton State Community College]

Gadsden State Community College: Gadsden, Alabama

Grambling State University: Grambling, Louisiana

Hampton University: Hampton, Virginia

Harris-Stowe State College: St. Louis, Missouri

Hinds Community College: Utica, Mississippi

Howard University: Washington, D.C.

Huston-Tillotson College: Austin, Texas

Interdenominational Theological Center: Atlanta, Georgia

J. F. Drake State Technical College: Huntsville, Alabama

Jackson State University: Jackson, Mississipi

Jarvis Christian College: Hawkins, Texas

Johnson C. Smith University: Charlotte, North Carolina

Kentucky State University: Frankfort, Kentucky

Knoxville College: Knoxville, Tennessee

Lane College: Jackson, Tennessee

Langston University: Langston, Oklahoma

Lawson State Community College: Birmingham, Alabama

LeMoyne-Owen College: Memphis, Tennessee

Lewis College of Business: Detroit, Michigan

Lincoln University: Chester, Pennsylvania

Lincoln University: Jefferson City, Missouri

Livingstone College: Salisbury, North Carolina

Mary Holmes College: West Point, Mississippi

Medgar Evers College: Brooklyn, New York

Meharry Medical College: Nashville, Tennessee

Miles College: Fairfield, Alabama

Mississippi Valley State University: Itta Bena, Mississippi

Morehouse College: Atlanta, Georgia

Morehouse School of Medicine: Atlanta, Georgia

Morgan State University: Baltimore, Maryland

Morris Brown College: Atlanta, Georgia

Morris College: Sumter, South Carolina

Norfolk State University: Norfolk, Virginia

North Carolina A & T State University: Greensboro, North Carolina

North Carolina Central University: Durham, North Carolina

Oakwood College: Huntsville, Alabama

Paine College: Augusta, Georgia

Paul Quinn College: Dallas, Texas

Philander Smith College: Little Rock, Arkansas

Prairie View A & M University: Prairie View, Texas

Rust College: Holy Springs, Mississippi

Saint Augustine’s College: Raleigh, North Carolina

Saint Paul’s College: Lawrenceville, Virginia

Saint Philip’s College: San Antonio, Texas

Savannah State University: Savannah, Georgia

Selma University: Selma, Alabama

Shaw University: Raleigh, North Carolina

Shelton State Community College, C.A. Fredd Campus: Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Shorter College: North Little Rock, Arkansas

South Carolina State University: Orangeburg, South Carolina

Southern University A & M College: Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Southern University at New Orleans: New Orleans, Louisiana

Southern University at Shreveport: Shreveport, Louisiana

Southwestern Christian College: Terrell, Texas

Spelman College: Atlanta, Georgia

Stillman College: Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Talladega College: Talladega, Alabama

Tennessee State University: Nashville, Tennessee

Texas College: Tyler, Texas

Texas Southern University: Houston, Texas

Tougaloo College: Tougaloo, Mississippi

Trenholm State Technical College: Montgomery, Alabama

Tuskegee University: Tuskegee, Alabama

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff: Pine Bluff, Arkansas

University of the District of Columbia: Washington, D.C.

University of Maryland Eastern Shore: Princess Anne, Maryland

University of the Virgin Islands: St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

Virginia State University: Petersburg, Virginia

Virginia Union University: Richmond, Virginia

Voorhees College: Denmark, South Carolina

West Virginia State College: Charleston, West Virginia

Wilberforce University: Wilberforce, Ohio

Wiley College: Marshall, Texas

Winston-Salem State University: Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Xavier University of Louisiana: New Orleans, Louisiana

FOREWORD

Since before the days of slavery, education has been the North Star of black aspiration. It is the certain road to a promised land where black people are seen as fully human by whites—even by the racist whites who first consigned blacks to the status of subhuman slaves. Education alone has been key to the fight for black freedom in America because people who could read and write automatically became leaders among a people who had been denied schooling as a tool of racial oppression.

To be a black person without an education is to find independence and freedom always out of reach. Segregationists knew this as surely as they knew that night-riding Klansmen and indiscriminate lynching served to intimidate any black soul seeking to stand on equal ground with fellow Americans. History has revealed they were right to fear educated black people. The trained black mind is the cornerstone of institutions created to advance black freedom, ranging from black churches to black businesses, political and civic groups, and, of course, black colleges.

The principal measure of black progress over the generations is the growing number of educated black people trained and positioned to produce better black churches, businesses, and colleges.

What cannot be measured about education and black Americans is the stamp of personal prestige it offers. Yesterday and today, black people are often stereotyped as ignorant, stupid, lazy, and incapable of academic excellence. To defy that defeating assumption about an entire race, black people have had to raise high the banner of intellectual achievement. The best rebuttal for any charge of stupidity is a degree, preferably a degree that confers the title of doctor. That designation offers deep emotional gratification to black people once derided as mentally deficient. To be an educated black man or woman is to spit in the devil’s eye. It is a repudiation of all the slanders uttered by advocates of white supremacy about weak-minded blacks.

In Ralph Ellison’s classic novel Invisible Man, the unnamed narrator and central character is a young black man who begins his life journey in search of education. He is bright and capable, but only a generation removed from slavery. He introduces himself as a man of flesh and bone, but he immediately betrays the deep insecurity of the black psyche when he writes that he is a being who might even be said to possess a mind. When the young narrator, just out of high school, is asked to deliver a speech to the town’s leading white men, he finds himself reduced to the level of objectified lust and violence. First, he is forced to watch a naked white woman strut around and then he is ordered into a brawl with other young black men for the entertainment of the white town fathers. They don’t care about his mind. And when he is finally allowed to give his speech, he does so with blood from the fight still stinging in his mouth and no one paying attention.

Rewarded with a scholarship to a black college the narrator finds himself further locked in the tyranny of white control over black educational institutions hungering for their financial support. At the heart of the campus is a bronze statue honoring the college’s black founder. The narrator writes of studying the statue and pondering the sight of the founder’s hand lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted or lowered more firmly into place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.

When the narrator shows too much of poor black life still damaged by the horrors of slavery to a white visitor, the black college president curses him as a black educated fool and throws him off the campus. Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of education are you getting around here?

The answer to that question is that education for black people involves both classroom study and an understanding of the ways of a nation and its people, traumatized by slavery and racism.

In the high-tech, information-based society of the twenty-first century, education has become even more important, an absolute touchstone for personal advancement in the United States. The civil rights movement—first against slavery, the black codes of the nineteenth century, then against Jim Crow segregation, and finally for equal opportunity under the law—can be interpreted as the story of black Americans seeking their right to be educated and for the equity afforded to other Americans.

During slavery, people risked their lives for education. Literacy was key to Frederick Douglass’s stand as a great abolitionist. Great preachers, most often the leaders of the black community in the immediate aftermath of slavery, were the black people who could read and interpret the Bible.

From the first days of the Republic, free blacks opened schools for their children and petitioned local officials to fund public schools for blacks. The fight to make those schools equal to white schools was at the heart of the civil rights struggle of the twentieth century. When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) devised a strategy to challenge segregation, its lawyers focused first on ending school segregation. Once they forced graduate and professional schools to open their doors, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, under the direction of Thurgood Marshall, then struck at segregated elementary and secondary schools. Marshall, later the nation’s first black Supreme Court justice, challenged segregated schools as a violation of the equal rights protections under the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. That protracted struggle led to a shock with the May 17, 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision in which a unanimous Court ruled that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place—separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

The decision struck such a blow to segregation because the power of the right to be educated allowed black people to stand as equals to all others. Georgia governor Herman Talmadge, a white supremacist, predicted racial chaos would result from the ruling and that it marked the end of civilization in the South as we have known it.

The fight over education continued in the South even after the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown decision. In 1957, President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard to enforce the relatively new law of desegregation and escort nine black children into Little Rock, Arkansas’s Central High School. In 1962, federal troops forced open a pathway to allow James Meredith to be the first black man to attend the University of Mississippi. And just a year later, federal marshals had to stare down Alabama’s governor George Wallace as he made his infamous stand at the school house door of the University of Alabama in his highly publicized effort to stop two black students from enrolling there.

The struggle for the right to education and equal opportunity is a constant in black history. In the 1960s it was a matter of enforcing school integration. In the 1970s it was the Bakke decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a university could not set aside seats for black students solely on the basis of their race but could consider race as a factor for admission. The 1970s and 1980s saw major conflict nationwide over busing schoolchildren to integrate schools. Most recently, the debate over affirmative action in higher education has centered around the use of race as a factor in selecting students for admission to historically white undergraduate and law schools.

Throughout that fight the historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been the major source of education for black people in the United States. They have delivered the education that produced the leaders. HBCUs are the heart of black political thinking, art and culture, and the nurture of a black intelligentsia.

Education is the dividing line and road to empowerment in black America—period. Quakers and other Protestants, Catholics, and Jews have done great work to help with higher education for black Americans, but black colleges have always been the heart of all efforts to pull black people out of a miserable history of slavery and into the light of learning.

It is now 50 years since the Brown decision ended legal segregation in the public schools. Brown held the promise of equal education for all. But today the difference between black people who prosper in this country and black people who scrape along the bottom of American life is the canyon of distance between people who have education and people who don’t. Even after Brown, black colleges and universities continue to be the prime source of education for black people. From 1966 to 1998, college graduate rates for African Americans went from 3.8 percent to 14.7 percent. Even with white schools slowly opening their doors, most of that increase has been a result of the continuing work of black colleges.

That work is not limited to the classroom. As graduation rates have climbed, so have black incomes. Between 1980 and 2000, median income for blacks climbed (in constant dollars) from $21,418 to $30,436. According to a 2002 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, black people with less than a high school education would earn less than a million dollars during their work-life, increasing to $1 million for workers with a high school education, $1.7 million for a bachelor’s degree and $2.5 million for an advanced degree.

The million-dollar question in terms of lifelong earnings for any black person is, Did you get an education? There are several smaller questions hidden within that big one: Did you graduate from high school? Did you graduate from college? Did you earn an advanced degree? People who answer yes to at least two of those questions, whether black, white, Asian American, or Hispanic, hold the winning ticket in the American race toward the good life. But among black people, having the right answers is a matter of survival. Those answers impact on the next generation of every black family. A 1999 study found that 60 percent of black college freshmen were the children of fathers who had a college degree.

These are the hard facts of life for black America—get an education or take a backseat. Civil rights victories ended legal segregation. Black legends led protests for voting rights and equal access to jobs, hotels, and restaurants. But without education, all of those hard-won rights are little more than window dressing. Only one set of institutions in American history has made delivering education to black people their central mission—the historically black colleges and universities.

Juan Williams

Elizabeth City cheerleaders

Elizabeth City State University

INTRODUCTION

Education has always been the way out. In spite of popular perception, most of us can’t sing or play a sport well enough to earn a living. And before there was a Jackie Robinson in baseball, a Jack Johnson in the ring, or a Paul Robeson on stage, there were doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, artists, businessmen and businesswomen, and other professionals who made their way in the world because of the educational foundation forged in historically black colleges and universities.

I attended one of those colleges;, in fact, the first: Cheyney University, which was founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth. When I was there, it was called Cheyney State, one of a dozen or so state colleges that made up the Pennsylvania system of Teachers Colleges. It was the only predominantly black school in the system and traditionally the lowest funded.

My grades were very good and I could have attended any number of big-name schools, but I chose Cheyney because of the reception I received on my first visit there during my senior year in high school. There was a warmth, a camaraderie that existed that I had never experienced before. At the time, I had not given any thought to becoming a schoolteacher. But the warmth I felt on that first visit to Cheyney made an immediate and indelible impression on me: this was the school for me. In all of the years since then, as I competed against men and women who attended prestigious Ivy League schools or other big-name universities, I was always proud of the education that came with my years at Cheyney. That education gave me the tools and honed the drive that would enable me to compete against anyone—from anywhere.

The curriculum at Cheyney was determined by the state, and that curriculum was not designed to teach us about our history. But there were always professors at Cheyney who skirted the system and explored tangents that would lead students deep into the dark shafts where we could find the history of black people in this country and beyond. For example, you wouldn’t find the story of Crispus Attucks in the state-supplied textbooks, but Professor James Stevenson, my football coach as well as history professor, pointed us to the library. He charged us with finding out what we could about Crispus Attucks and to report back on what we found. And, of course, that led to a much wider discussion of black people in America. There were many more trips to the library to find out what wasn’t in those state-supplied textbooks. And that’s how we learned our history.

It was a history filled with restrictive laws and people who wanted to keep blacks illiterate. If slaves couldn’t read, they wouldn’t know a better world was out there. And if they couldn’t write, they couldn’t forge travel passes that would allow safe passage to freedom. Literacy—education—was a way to escape slavery. Back then it was a way out, and today education is still the best way out.

Mainstream universities are more integrated than ever, but they are still closed to many. HBCUs provide the extra nurture that some black students need. At Cheyney, there were always professors who would encourage students to do better; professors who would demand more. And there were so many who encouraged you to be the best you could be. They drilled in us the idea that we had to work harder because, for us, the climb up the economic ladder would be different; there would be rungs missing from that ladder. Our climb up would be harder because we were minorities. But, as difficult as that trip could be, we were always encouraged to do more so that we could achieve more.

Today, there are still so many young black men and women who choose to attend a historically black college or university because they are reservoirs of our culture, tradition, and opportunity. HBCUs still provide a door to the future, to a better life, to a better people.

Those of us who graduated from a historically black college or university have an obligation to keep those doors open; an obligation to give back to the system that nurtured us. It can be done by example, by mentoring and by financial support.

There is a new generation seeking a way out, and with an education from and HBCU, they will find a way or make one.

Ed Bradley

The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project would not have been possible without the shared vision of Juan Williams, a dedicated and committed custodian of Justice Thurgood Marshall’s legacy. Juan endorsed the concept more than four years ago and pledged his support to bringing this important piece of American history to the forefront. He and his wife, Delise, have been partners in helping to make this dream a reality. Juan, thank you for helping to tell the HBCU story in your voice. Your belief in the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s work and HBCU’s role in preparing leaders has aided us in educating the more than 400,000 young men and women who attend our schools. This work will speak for the thousands of faculty members and leaders who dedicated their lives to educating men and women who might not have had a chance at reaching their full potential.

I’ll Find a Way or Make One is a fitting title for how this book came to be. Hundreds of people helped us find a way or make a way to publish this book. It would take another book to list all of you individually, but you know who you are, and we thank you all.

Among the family of the 108 HBCUs, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Staff and Board, I am especially indebted to members of my staff, some of whom have moved on to other positions: Tola Ozim, an outstanding assistant; Shireen Idroos, former coordinator of government and advocacy; the late Ida Simon, former vice president, development; Paul Allen; Lisa Van Putten; Beverly Colbert; Shannon Henderson; Renau Daniels; Johana Reyes; Fred Gilbert; Virginia Johnson; Damian Travier; Susan Jacob; Courtney Booker III; Roger Lord; Regina Smith; Shineaca Moore; Rebecca Briggs; and Kofi Kubi Appiah. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. N. Joyce Payne, founder of the Thurgood Marshall Fund, for her vision and steady personal support; and to all the HBCU presidents for your outstanding leadership. A special thanks to the following university CEOs: Dr. Earl Richardson, Dr. William B. Delauder, Dr. Ernest Holloway, Dr. David Beckly, Dr. Joe Lee, Dr. Thomas Winston Cole Jr., Dr. Frederick Humphreys, Dr. Priscilla Slade, Dr. Carlton Brown, Dr. James Rennick, Dr. Edison Jackson, and Dr. Ronald Mason.

Board members: David Stern, Lorraine Thelian, James Mitchell, Robert Feldman, Butch Graves, Virgis W. Colbert, and Reginald Van Lee. To Allan Baker, Brent Clinkscale, Jim Clifton, Shelia Kearney, Noel Hankin, Michael Rhodes, and all of the other board members and corporate leaders who have helped keep HBCUs strong and vibrant.

Thanks to my parents, Mary Gipson Ashley and Archie L. Clay, who inspired me to gain all I could from the HBCU experience.

Thanks also to the Marshall family: Mrs. Cecilia Marshall, John Marshall, and Goody Marshall, whose commitment to carrying on the legacy of Thurgood Marshall inspires us all. To William Hubert Gray III for his outstanding dedication to HBCUs and all the work he has done to keep them alive.

To Oprah Winfrey, Lynn Whitfield, Tommy Dortch, Earl Graves Sr., Debbie Allen, Shirley Horn, Vernon Jordan, John Thompson, Dixie Garr, Ed Bradley, and all of the other distinguished alumni of HBCUs for showing America and the world the quality products that HBCUs produce.

A special thanks to those professors and teachers at HBCUs who continue to teach in order to touch a life and not just to make a dollar—to the late Dr. George H. Chandler and to Dr. Maggie Brown Daniels; to Dr. Telly Miller and Dr. Truby B. Clayton for the lessons in life that made the HBCU experience so special.

To each of the librarians and archivists who helped us unearth a wealth of rich, compelling history on HBCUs. A warm thanks to curator Joellen ElBashir at Howard University’s Moorland Springarn Research Center and reference archivist Cathy Lynn Mundale at the Atlanta University Center’s Robert W. Woodruff Library. To Mitch Tuchman, whose legal knowledge of publishing kept us all sane. Mitch, thank you and the Womble Caryle Family for taking on the legal representation of this project as a donation to the Fund.

To an incredible woman whose commitment to publishing and ensuring that stories are told serves as a catalyst for writers and for this project—Adrienne Ingrum. She joined me and caught the vision! She supported and dedicated years to ensuring that this project was completed. Without her commitment to bringing this work to life and rallying the group, the reality of this project would have simply been a dream unfulfilled. She was assisted by a team of people whose efforts were heroic: the writing team. First and foremost the talented and dedicated researcher and writer Shawn Rhea; Booker Mattison, Precious Mattison, Herb Boyd, and Dara Byrne; copy editor Olivia Cloud; and photo editor Suzanne Rust.

I would also like to acknowledge those friends of the Fund who have given generously of their time to assist us in hosting various events throughout the years: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Diahann Carroll, Star Jones, Jackee Harry, Stephanie Mills, Gayle King, Anna Marie Hartsford, Roberta Flack, Gordon Chambers, Johnny Gill, Ray Allen, Shane Battier, Nancy Wilson, James Jimmy Jam Harris, and Terry S. Lewis.

HBCUs continue to benefit from scores of elected officials who advocate on their behalf at the federal, state, and city levels. Without their continued support, this book would not have been possible; they have helped to preserve the rich history of these schools.

A special thanks to President George H.W. Bush, President William Jefferson Clinton, and President George W. Bush, former vice president Albert Gore, and first ladies Barbara and Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton, who have all been supporters of HBCUs. I would also like to recognize secretaries of education: Dick Riley and Rod Paige, and secretaries of labor: Alexis Herman and Elaine Chao. And finally I would like to thank and acknowledge Mayor Sharpe James of Newark.

While I cannot personally acknowledge, by name, every member of Congress (past and present) who has supported our schools, I do want to pay special tribute to all members of Congress and a few individuals who have gone above and beyond, namely: Senators Arlen Specter, Herb Kohl, Rick Santorum, Christopher S. Kit Bond, Charles Schumer, and Hillary Clinton.

A very special acknowledgment to the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr., John Lewis, Maxine Waters, and Sheila Jackson Lee.

Thank God for friends and family who hold you up during times that try the soul. My defensive backs are always steady and this dream would not have happened without their support. Thank you Debra Ashley. Albert Mitchell, Anthony Clark, Sylvia Brooks, Chris Brown, Albert Dotson, LeRoy Walker, Roosevelt Dorn, Rustin Lewis, Rev. Joe Ratcliffe, Rev. James Nash, Savoy Walker, Kenneth Reynolds, Rev. Ralph West, David Martin, Derrick Warren, Jennifer Jiles, Dr. Eddie Jumper, Reginald Lewis, Marcus Boyd, Larry Satterfield, Ida Callier, Jeff Thompson, Julita Vasquez, Kevin Harry, Mark Moxley, Ralph Jackson, Richard Johnson, Robert Traynham, Rondo Moses, Gerald Norde, Rodney Watson, Brent Clinkscale, Michael Fitzpatrick, Arthur Thomas, Phillip Harold, Kurt John, Bert Matthews, Larry Green, Alicia Jackson, Brenda Clay Jackson, Sharmagne Taylor, Dwight Rhodes, Harold Qualls, Ronnell Walker, Sean Johnson, Steve Manning, Terry Albert, Terry Hudson, Sherrie Thannars, Dr. James Spady, Edward H. Morris Sr., Sheila Eldridge, and Winston Jones.

My friends in the world of education and philanthropy who have also been friends to HBCUs: Dr. Deborah Wilds and Tom Vander Ark of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Sara Cobb, Allan Wright, and Willis Bright of the Lilly Endowment; Dr. Lydia English of the W. K. Mellon Foundation; Florence Davis and Gladys Thomas of the Starr Foundation; Joe Nelson and Donald Sheppard of the Houston Endowment; Marvelous Baker of the Cleveland Foundation; Michael E. Szymanczyk of Philip Morris International Inc.; Silver Esther Parker, president of the Walmart Foundation (former president of the AT & T Foundation); and Linda Testa of Microsoft Corporation.

To the brothers of Phi Beta Sigma, and the women of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, I would like to say thank you. I would also like to thank all of my Greek brothers and sisters who support HBCUs, and all of the churches and community groups who partner with HBCUs in their quest to help young men and women achieve their full potential.

And, finally, thanks to the talented staff at HarperCollins who believed in this project and helped to make it happen, especially our editors, Dawn Davis and Kelli Martin, our acquiring editor, Manie Barron, and our managing editor, John Jusino.

Dwayne Ashley, president, Thurgood Marshall College Fund

SEARCHABLE TERMS

Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

A

Abbott, Cleve Major, 167–68, 170

abolition movement, 14–16, 20, 22–23, 35, 37–40. See also American Missionary Association (AMA); slavery

accreditation issues, 29, 136, 139–41

activism. See black autonomy issues; civil rights movement; desegregation issues

Adderley, Nat and Julian, 195

affirmative action, xvi, 294–96

Africa

African studies, 83, 229–32

alumni leaders of, 230–31

higher education in Mali, 10–11

South African apartheid, 279

African American Presbyterian Church, 81

African Americans. See also alumni; black autonomy issues; black education; historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

clergy leaders, xv, 56–60

education of free, 9–18

elusive educational opportunities for, 297

Forten family, 37–40

income of, xvi–xvii

middle class, 101, 141, 144–48

philanthropists, 104–5 (see also philanthropists; scholarships)

race relations, 248–49

student activism (see black autonomy issues; civil rights movement; desegregation issues)

as teachers, 36–44, 52

African American studies, 256, 274–77

African Free School, 9, 12–13, 23

African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), 22, 55, 62–64, 140–41, 201

African studies, 83, 229–32

Alabama, HBCUs in, 311–13, 322, 332, 346, 356, 364, 373, 384, 394, 396, 405–6, 412–13

Alabama A & M University, 126, 306–7, 311

Alabama State University, 29, 312–13

Albany State University, 314

Alcorn State University, 97, 175, 315

Allen University, 63, 316

Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, 152, 154, 160

Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, 145, 152, 155, 158, 208

alumni

African leaders, 230–31

artists, 185

corporate leaders and financiers, 278–82

filmmakers, 287–89

media stars, 4–6, 187, 292

musicians, 194–95

philanthropists, 104–5

political leaders, 230–31, 277–78, 284–86

publishers, 306–8

scholars and intellectuals, 81–84

scientists, 91–92

sociologists, 149–51, 178, 192–93

success of, 1, 7, 277–82, 284–93

writers, 178, 188–92

American Baptist Home Missionary Society, 55, 57, 64–66, 75

American Missionary Association (AMA), 22–23, 35, 53, 55, 61–62, 70, 71, 81

Amistad case, 35, 61–62

Ansa, Tina McElroy, 189

Arkansas, HBCUs in, 317, 387, 397, 414

Arkansas Baptist College, 317

art collections, 181–84

artists, 185

astronaut, 91–92

athletics. See sports

Atlanta University. See Clark Atlanta University

autonomy issues. See black autonomy issues

Avery College, 61, 428

Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 230–31, 367

B

Baker, Ella, 245–46, 250

Bakke case, xvi

bands, marching, 125–27

Baptist Church, 18–19, 22, 55, 56–57, 64–66, 75, 93

Barber-Scotia College, 68, 318

Barnes Foundation, 184

Barry, Marion, 246, 250, 284–85

baseball, 166, 168–70, 237

basketball, 172–73

Batson, Ruth, 104

Beecher, Henry Ward, 24

Benedict College, 66, 319

benefactors. See philanthropists

Bennett College, 64, 244, 320

Berea College, 43, 61

Bethune, Mary McLeod, 94–97, 131–35, 213, 227

Bethune-Cookman College, 64, 94–97, 131–35, 200–201, 321

Bible, literacy and, xv, 6

Bishop College, 428

Bishop State Community College, 322

Black, Joe, 237

black-and-tan societies, 148

black autonomy issues, 100–135

African American president issue, 119–35

Mary McLeod Bethune and, 131–35

HBCU segregation and, 103–8

social code issues, 108–18

vocational vs. liberal arts education, 101–3

black education, 1–49. See also historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

abolition movement and, 22–23

in Africa, 10–11

before Civil War, 31–33

in colonial United States, 6–9

early schools, 23–29

of free blacks, 9–17

Freedmen’s Bureau and, 45–49

normal schools and, 27–29

Port Royal experiment, 32–44

Reconstruction era (see Reconstruction era)

in southern United States, 17–22

value of, xiii–xvii, 2–3, 42, 50

black nationalism, 230, 258–59

Black Panther Party, 253–56

blacks. See African Americans

black studies, 256, 274–77

Bluefield State College, 267, 323

Bond, Horace Mann, 83–84, 150–51, 178, 192–93, 232, 367

Bond, Julian, 249–50, 256–57, 278, 286, 367

Bowie State University, 267, 324

Bradley, Ed, 4

Brandeis, Louis D., 206–7

Brooks, Angie E., 231

Brooks, Gwendolyn, 190

Brown, H. Rap, 253

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case, xv–xvi, 2, 145, 210, 234–37, 248, 260

Bunche, Ralph, 227–28

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. See Freedmen’s Bureau

Burnett, Leonard, 293, 307–8

bus system boycotts, 237–39

Butler Junior College, 428

C

capitalism, 210–11, 215

Carmichael, Stokely, 7, 250, 253–56, 286

Carver, George Washington, 86, 89, 91, 183, 413

Cary, Mary Ann Shadd, 23

Catholic Church, 60–61

Central State University, 79, 325

Cheyney University, 2, 13, 16, 17, 29, 102, 104, 170, 173, 326

Chicago State University, 327

Chisholm, Sam, 280–81

Christian churches, 55–68

African Methodists 55, 62–64 (see also African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME))

American Missionary Association, 61–62 (see also American Missionary Association (AMA))

Baptists, 64–66

Mary McLeod Bethune and, 94–97

black clergy leaders, 56–60

black education and, xv–xvi, 6, 18–23, 69–71, 77

Catholic Church, 60–61

Freedmen’s Bureau and, 45–49, 52–55

Presbyterians, 67–68

civil rights movement, 240–63

beginnings of, xiv–xvi, 210–13, 225–26, 247–48 (see also black autonomy issues; desegregation issues)

black nationalism and, 259

educational integration of HBCUs, 259–63

nonviolent protest training, 245–46

Orangeburg Massacre, 257–58

SNCC and, 246, 248–53

student sit-ins, 241–45

Vietnam War antiwar activism, 253–57

Civil War, 30–49

black education before, 31–33

Freedmen’s Bureau, 45–49

Port Royal experiment, 34–44

Claflin University, 244, 328

Clark Atlanta University, 48, 52–53, 61, 64, 76–77, 138–39, 150–51, 164, 169, 183, 201, 299, 303, 329

class issues, 101, 141, 144–48, 153

Cleaver, Eldridge and Kathleen, 275

Cleaver, Lowell H., 218

clergy leaders, xv, 56–60. See also Christian churches

Clinkscales, Keith, 1, 293, 307–8

Clinton Junior College, 330

Coahoma Community College, 331

codes of conduct, 36, 103, 108–18

Cole, Johnetta B., 302

colleges, African American. See historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

color caste, 148, 153, 160

Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), 138, 169

Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, 22

Combs, Sean P Diddy, 1, 105, 195, 293

Concordia College, 332

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 245

consolidation issues, 200–201

control issues. See black autonomy issues

Coppin, Fanny Jackson, 17

Coppin State College, 17, 333

Cornish, Samuel Eli, 23, 81

corporate leaders, 278–82

corporations, 105, 278–79. See also foundations; philanthropists; scholarships

Cosby, Bill and Camille, 104–5, 341

Cox, William E., 306–7

Crandall, Prudence, 15–16

cultural issues, 136–95. See also alumni

accreditation, 137–41

art collections, 181–84

black middle class social life, 144–48

Greek-letter organizations, 152–65

Harlem Renaissance, 176–95

intercollegiate sports, 165–76

musicians, 142–43, 194–95

publishers, 177, 293, 298–99, 306–8

sociology programs, 149–51

theater, 186–88

writers, 188–90

D

Daniel Payne College, 428

Davis, Benjamin O., 217

debate, 138, 176, 185

Delaware State University, 267, 334

Delta Sigma Theta sorority, 152, 155–56, 165

Denmark Technical College, 335

desegregation issues, 224–39

civil rights movement, 225–26 (see also civil rights movement)

educational desegregation, 233–37 (see also educational desegregation issues)

international studies programs, 229–32

social system desegregation, 237–39

United Nations petition, 227–29

Dickey, John Miller, 25, 67

Dillard University, 55, 61, 64, 148, 201, 336

District of Columbia, HBCUs in, 352, 415

domestic education. See vocational education Douglas, Aaron, 178, 185

Douglass, Frederick, xv, 19–20, 24, 119

drama, 185–88

Drexel, Katherine, 60–61

DuBois, W. E. B., 2–3, 82, 90, 101–2, 110–18, 138–39, 149, 176–78, 191, 227, 341

Duke, Bill, 288

Durham, W. J., 268–69

Durham College, 428

Durkee, James Stanley, 119–30

E

Earls, Julian, 92

economic issues. See financial issues

Edelman, Marian Wright, 278, 286

Edmonds, Helen, 276

education, African American. See black education; historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

educational desegregation issues, 264–89. See also desegregation

issues

alumni success and, 277–82, 284–89

black studies movement, 259, 274–77

educational effectiveness, 272–74, 283

financial difficulties, 266–70

financial initiatives, 270–72

legal cases, xv–xvi, 2, 233–37, 260–63, 268–69

Edward Waters College, 63, 337

Elizabeth City State University, 100, 338

Ellison, Ralph, xiv, 189

Emancipation Proclamation, 45–47

endowments. See scholarships

Evers, Medgar Wiley, 286, 371

F

Fauset, Jessie, 176

Fayetteville State University, 339

Fee, John G., 43

filmmakers, 287–89

financial issues. See also foundations; philanthropists; scholarships

Mary McLeod Bethune and, 131, 134–35

current, 302–3

educational desegregation and, 259–63, 266-72

educational segregation and, 76–77

Freedmen’s Bureau and (see Freedmen’s Bureau)

land-grant colleges acts, 97–99

spiritual ensembles and, 138, 142–43

vocational education and, 88–90

financiers, 105, 280–82

First Congregational Society, 71–72

Fisk University, 48, 55, 61–62, 68, 75, 106–17, 138, 141–43, 149–50, 174, 182–83, 247, 255–56, 340–41 Florida, HBCUs in, 321, 337, 342–44

Florida A & M University, 2, 75, 117–18, 125–27, 139, 171–72, 301, 304, 307–8, 342–43

Florida Memorial College, 66, 344

football, 125, 166–75

Ford Foundation, 256, 270

Forten, Charlotte, 36–41, 44

Forten, James, Sr., 37–38, 81

Forten family, 36–41

Fort Valley State University, 194, 277, 296, 345

Foster, William, 126, 287

foundations, 104, 256, 270. See also philanthropists; scholarships

Franklin, Shirley Clarke, 7, 286

fraternities, 152–65

Frazier, E. Franklin, 150, 178, 192–93, 210

free blacks, 9–18, 36–44, 52

Freedmen’s Aid Society, 22

Freedmen’s Bureau

Freedmen’s Bank, 57, 74–75

Port Royal experiment and, 45–49

Reconstruction and, 28, 51–53, 69–75

French, Manfield, 34–35

Friendship College, 428

Frye, Henry, 259

Fugitive Slave Law, 32, 37

fundraising. See financial issues

G

Gadsden State Community College, 346

Gaines, Clarence Big House, 173

Gamble, James N., 134–35

Gammon Theological Seminary, 64

Garr, Dixie, 281–82

Gary, Willie, 105

General Motors, 278–79

Georgia, 314, 329, 345, 354–55, 375–77, 379, 385, 393, 403–4

Gerima, Haile, 288–89

GI Bill of Rights, 227

Gibson, Althea, 171–72, 237–38

Giles, Harriet E., 66, 93

Gilliam, James H., 105

Giovanni, Nikki, 190

Gloster, Hugh, 271

graduates. See alumni

Grambling State University, 126, 174–75, 281–82, 347–48

Graves, Earl, 282, 307

Great Depression era, 196–223

financial difficulties, 199–205

Howard University law school, 206–10

Martin Luther King, Jr., 219–23

New Deal programs, 213–15

political issues, 210–13

progress before, 197–99

progress during, 205–6

World War II programs, 216–18

Greek fraternities and sororities, 152–65

H

Hammon, Jupiter, 188

Hampton Singers, 138

Hampton-Tuskegee model, 84–90, 109

Hampton University, 29, 48, 61, 75, 77, 84–87, 118, 138, 181, 349

Handy, William C., 126

Hansberry, William Leo, 83, 229–32

Harlem Renaissance, 82, 176–95, 230

Harris, Abram, 150

Harris-Stowe State College, 350

Harvard