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Jul 10, 2023 · Howard’s Rock arrived at Clemson in the early 1960s as a gift from a friend of Clemson football coach Frank Howard. The rock was used as a doorstop for several years before it was mounted on a pedestal overlooking Clemson’s Memorial Stadium in 1966.
Oct 1, 2023 · In what otherwise would be a sleepy college town of just over 17,000 sits the 83,350-seat Frank Howard Field at Memorial Stadium, ominously dubbed “Death Valley”. Originally founded as a military and agricultural school in 1889, Clemson began playing football in 1902. The Tigers were successful in their early years, but it would be Frank ...
Howard played games at both Howard Stadium, sometimes referred to as University Stadium, and nearby Griffith Stadium, where crowds of 17,000 to 20,000 people were common, from the 1920s into the 1950s. (Griffith Stadium was demolished in 1965.)
A City Founded on Hard Justice. In 1856, the son of one of Dallas’ founding families was caught cheating while gambling and was shot by his victim. Left without any recourse to enforce law and ...
- Overview
- The origins of HBCUs
- Post-Civil War growth
- Debating segregation
- Effects of desegregation
- A hopeful future?
Since their founding in the 1800s, historically Black colleges and universities have had a significant role — from the pre-Civil War era through Reconstruction and into the modern era.
Spelman College graduates move their tassels from right to left after their degrees are conferred on May 16, 2021 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded April 11, 1881 to educate Black women, Spelman is the top-rated historically black college in the United States.
President Joe Biden sent heads spinning in 2020 when he selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his vice-presidential running mate.
“Today is an extraordinary moment in the history of America and of Howard University,” wrote Howard President Wayne A.I. Frederick, on the day of Biden’s announcement. “As Senator Harris embarks upon this new chapter in her life, and in our country’s history, she is poised to break two glass ceilings in our society with one fell swoop of her Howard hammer!”
The election generated needed energy for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), a group of higher education institutions that include Harris’s alma mater Howard University.
(Why historically Black colleges are enjoying a renaissance)
HBCUs emerged as a vital educational niche before the Civil War. In the South, antebellum “slave codes” prohibited the education of the millions of enslaved African people who were considered property, not citizens, at the time.
So runaways and freedmen seeking an education had to travel north. As part of their efforts to expand comprehension of English, Quakers and religious missionaries established one-room schoolhouses to educate freed Blacks. Cheyney University of Pennsylvania was the first to be founded in 1837, followed by Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Wilberforce University in Ohio.
As the Civil War began in the 1860s, these schools also drew in poor immigrant whites and displaced Native Americans, all seeking to master the English language as a route to success in the United States.
(Meet trailblazers From Atlanta's historically Black colleges.)
In 1862, that momentum was embraced by Representative Justin Smith Morrill, a former Vermont shopkeeper who had dropped out of school upon realizing his family could not pay for him to go to college. Morrill championed the Morrill Land Grant College Act, a piece of door-opening legislation giving states federal property—30,000 acres for each congressional district—plus funding to establish state-controlled colleges.
Left: More than 800 young men participated in the combined 2020-2021 Morehouse College commencement ceremony. Founded in 1867, the all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia is the largest producer of African American men with doctoral degrees.
As the Civil War drew to a close in 1864 and the federally controlled Reconstruction period began to “reunite” the states, there was no plan for educating the estimated four million suddenly freed enslaved people who had worked on Southern plantations. The government stepped in again.
In March 1865, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau—with an ambitious agenda and no budget. Run by Union generals, the Freedmen’s Bureau was charged with integrating Black Southerners into society.
The agency set up makeshift schools to educate the freed Black Americans. In September 1865, three months after the war officially ended, Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) was founded with assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was soon followed by the Fisk Free Colored School in Nashville, Tennessee in 1866.
Left: A Spelman College graduation program sits on the ground at Bobby Dodd stadium. Spelman is the top producer of Black women who receive doctoral degrees in STEM fields. Spelman alumnae are prominent civic, business, political and cultural leaders.
Right: Spelman alumnae include Dr. Audrey F. Manley, former Surgeon General of the United States and first alumna president of Spelman College, and Rosalind Brewer, chief executive officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance and chair of the college’s board of trustees.
Photographs by Lynsey Weatherspoon, National Geographic
As educational opportunities for freed slaves grew, so did differing schools of thought among emerging Black leaders on how to secure economic and educational advancement. One of the most divisive education debates of the last century—often called the “Great Debate”—took place between distinguished academics Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.
One of Hampton University’s earliest students, Washington was born a slave in Virginia and moved to West Virginia after emancipation. In 1872, Washington reportedly walked 500 miles to Hampton, arriving with 50 cents in his pocket. The school enrolled him anyway, allowing him to earn his tuition by working as a janitor.
By contrast, DuBois was a Massachusetts-born, Harvard-trained educator who taught at Wilberforce University and Atlanta University. DuBois asserted the best course for the future was to push for civil rights and a liberal arts education for the “talented tenth” of Black citizens who could then lead their communities.
In the 1950s, the unresolved issue of racial segregation in schools was pushed front and center when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that the separate-but-equal doctrine that had propped up segregation was unconstitutional.
The push toward desegregation would have unforeseen consequences for HBCUs. Bluefield State College, founded in 1895 to provide higher education to children of Black coal miners in West Virginia, quickly began to desegregate in the 1960s—starting with quiet removal of its Black administrators. By the late 1990s, Bluefield State would have a Black enrollment of under 10 percent.
Spelman College graduates Sydney Price, left, and Cylantra Dees stand for portraits following the 2021 commencement exercise.
Photographs by Lynsey Weatherspoon, National Geographic
HBCUs also remained underfunded compared to white institutions of higher education. In 1970, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took on the federal government, arguing that it had granted funds to 10 states with racially segregated educational systems. The NAACP also provided evidence that state and federal agencies had endorsed and condoned unequal funding, enrollment, staffing, salary, infrastructure, curriculum development, and more.
The courts agreed. In response to the ruling, the federal government formally acknowledged the unique role of HBCUs and invested millions of dollars to upgrade their facilities.
The ruling fueled the dismantling of the country’s dual educational systems. The federal government required states to submit desegregation plans—while also requiring HBCUs to expand their non-minority enrollment. Whether due to pressure from the courts or public opinion, most states eventually complied. (Some, however, are still mired in legal controversy.)
After the civil unrest across the nation in 2020, sparked by deadly police shootings in a number of cities, the talk of more HBCUs joining the ranks of America’s dying institutions quickly vanished.
“We are beyond that debate now,” says California-based consultant Hugh C. Burroughs, who has worked for several philanthropists including the John Hay Whitney Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. “These institutions are important pillars and foundation for equality and racial justice.”
He argues that the public outcry for political civility and protesting police misconduct signals a “new normal” with respect to race relations. “We’ve got to get this race thing right,” he says. “I really think the door is open.”
In September 2020, Congress stepped in with an emergency half billion-dollar bailout to revive the institutions from near financial collapse during the pandemic, which disproportionately hit poor and minority communities. And that aid was more than matched a few months later with a surprising gesture of private support.
In December 2020, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announced plans to distribute $5 billion dollars to hundreds of organizations—including HBCUs. The institutions receiving gifts ranged from urban Howard University, which got $40 million, to rural Prairie View A&M University in Texas, which received $50 million.
Scott—who became the world’s richest woman after her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—gave the money upfront with no strings attached. This bold move diverted sharply from a pattern of corporate giving in which donors tie conditions to their support, typically earmarking it for business, science, and math while liberal arts get cut.
Oct 24, 2023 · Ohio Stadium’s inception can be traced back to the early 20th century, an era marked by burgeoning interest in collegiate football. The pressing need for a larger stadium was felt as the...
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