African American Colleges?

Northstarmom
Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:37:54 +0000

“isn’t it common knowledge that most colleges accepted white students in the early 20th century?”

I’m assuming that you meant to write, " most colleges accepted ONLY white students in the early 20th century?" ;)

No, that’s not common knowledge. In the years that I have been posting on CC, I have seen posters who thought that HBCUs existed because black people hated white people. The posters didn’t realize that HBCUs existed because for more than a century, by law, black students couldn’t attend schools, including colleges, with white people in most or many parts of this country.

Some of the same posters assumed that the NAACP is a separatist organization and things like black professional organizations were started because black people were prejudiced against whites. The posters didn’t realize that it was white people’s prejudices that led to blacks having to go to black colleges and belong to all black organizations: Those were their only alternatives.