African American Colleges?

Northstarmom
Fri, 14 Jul 2006 21:11:04 +0000

I suggest that you learn your history. Virtually every mainstream college is a historically white college. Heck, Princeton didn’t accept its first black student until 1945. Davidson didn’t accept its first black student until the 1960s. Journalist Charlene Hunter-Gault was one of the first two black students at U Ga. in 1961. In 1951, UNC Law School had its first black students. Even Stanford didn’t get its first black students until the 1960s: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/95/950221Arc5358.html

In most cases, those colleges didn’t have black students because the colleges themselves refused to accept black students no matter how qualified the students were. For example, the late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, who also was a Tuskegee airman, was accepted by University of Detroit, which withdrew his acceptance when they learned that he was black.

All of the historically black colleges were founded to provide places for black students to attend because there were very few mainstream colleges that would accept them. This included colleges in the north. If black students were accepted to mainstream colleges, often they sneaked in by passing for white (as was the case with the first black women who attended some of the top women’s colleges) or they were forced to live off campus because they weren’t allowed to room with white students.

My great uncle attended Syracuse in the early 1900s and had to sleep literally in the furnace room, for example.

Incidentally, many of the historically black colleges were founded by white people who wanted to provide some means of higher education for black students.

In case you’re wondering why the HBCUs continue to operate even though colleges are now integrated: Why should they end? The HBCUs are open to anyone who wishes to attend them, and all have integrated faculty and student bodies. In fact, some departments at some HBCUs are predominantly nonblack. Some historically black colleges such as Bluefield State in W. Virginia are now predominantly white.

Just like some Catholics may wish to attend Notre Dame or some Jews may wish to go to Brandeis, the same is true when it comes to black students; Some wish to attend colleges where they are going to be in the majority. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as people aren’t forced by law to attend college only with people of their own race.