The Enduring Relevance of HBCUs in America

Co Authored by:

Gregory J. Harris, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Florida A&M University
Tallahassee, Florida
Email: greogry.harris@famu.edu

and

Herron Keyon Gaston, M.Div., MPA
Yale University Graduate Student
& Education Consultant
Email:herron.gaston@yale.edu

An ongoing debate at the collegiate and legislative levels across the U.S. has been about the relevance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Currently there are 105 HBCUs across the country mainly in the southern states established post-Civil war. Many of these were established as part of legislation of The Morrill Act of 1862 which we know as the Land Grant College Act. However, during that time, U.S. systems were segregated by race and the opportunity to achieve the American dream though education could not be fully realized by many African Americans in many of the Confederate states. It was not until the Second Morrill Act of 1890 passed that this was extended to include to black institutions. The vision of the originator of the Morrill Act, Congressman Justin Smith Morrill from Vermont, himself a high school drop-out, was to finance agricultural and mechanical education and to make this education available to all social classes of people in the U.S.

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