Institute For Colored Youth

HBCUs have become a prominent establishment for young black adults. The combination of learning and culture makes for an amazing experience, as they make the transition from childhood to adulthood. As we relish in the magnificence of this black excellence, it makes you think. How did we get here?

In 1837 the first learning facility for young blacks was founded by Richard Humphreys. Richard changed his will to include the school following the 1829 race riots in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Humphreys’ wish was to use $10,000 (one-tenth of his estate) to fund the educational institution. Originally the school was called the African Institute, which later was renamed Institute for Colored Youth and eventually would become Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Initially instruction was at the high school level (at the time considered advanced) until the twentieth century when Cheyney became a college.

In the early stages, the school provided training in trades and agriculture, due to those being the prominent skills necessary in the general economy. The institute was relocated in 1902 to George Cheyney’s farm, a 275-acre property that’s 25 miles west of Philadelphia. The name “Cheyney” became associated with the school in 1913. The name changed several times during the 20th Century. In 1983, Cheyney was taken into the State System of Higher Education as Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.

The University of the District of Columbia was established in 1851, as the Normal School for Colored Girls. Through mergers and consolidation, the school grew into the only public university in Washington D.C. A woman named Myrtilla Miner founded the Normal School for Colored Girls against considerable racist opposition. December 3, 1851, in a rented room about fourteen square feet, in a frame house then owned and occupied as a dwelling by African American Edward Younger. Myrtilla Miner with six pupils established the first normal school in the District of Columbia. The school trained young black women to become teachers. Among its benefactors were the Society of Friends, Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe donated $1,000 from the sales of her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Mayor Walter Lenox believed that education would make Blacks a “restless population” and local residents formed some mobs in opposition to the school, the school remained open until the Civil War began. By 1879, the Normal School for Colored Girls was then known as Miner Normal School. It eventually joined the D.C. public education system. A separate institution, The Washington Normal School was established in 1873 for white girls and was renamed Wilson Normal School in 1913. In 1929, the United States Congress made both schools four-year teachers’ colleges, and designated Miner Teachers College for African Americans and Wilson Teachers College for white people. In 1955 following Brown v Board of Education, the two schools merged into the District of Columbia Teachers College. U.S. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Representative Archer Nelson of Minnesota sponsored the District of Columbia School Reform Act, which was enacted on November 7, 1966, as (Public Law 89-79), which established two additional institutions.

Federal City College was created as a four-year liberal arts college. It was originally planned to be a small, selective college of about 700 students. By the time the college opened in 1968, however, admission was open and applications had soared to 6,000, students were placed by lottery. The Washington Technical Institute was established as a technical school. Both institutions were also given land-grant status and awarded a $7.24 million endowment (USD) in lieu of a land grant. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MACS), initially accredited the Washington Technical Institute in 1971 and Federal City College in 1974. Efforts to unify the D.C. Teachers College, Federal City College and Washington Technical Institute under a single administrative structure, began in earnest after the passage of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. A merger of the institutions was approved in 1975, and on August 1, 1977, the three institutions were formally consolidated as the University of the District of Columbia, with Lisle C. Carter named its first president.

In 1854 John Miller Dickey, a Presbyterian minister and his wife Sarah Emlen Cresson, a Quaker, founded Ashmun Institute, which was later named Lincoln University in Hinsonville, Pennsylvania. The school was named after Jehudi Asmhun, who was a religious leader and social reformer. John and Sarah founded the school for the education of African Americans who had limited opportunity for higher education. In 1866, a year after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Ashmun Institute was renamed Lincoln University in his honor.

In 1856, the private institution known as Wilberforce University was founded. A collaboration between the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church from Cincinnati, Ohio and the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) mission, was to provide classical education and teacher training for black youth. The original board members were leaders both black and white. During the American Civil War a decline in students from the South, resulted in the college closing in 1862 due to financial issues. The AME Church eventually purchased the institution in 1863 to ensure its survival, making it the first black-owned and operated college in the nation. AME Bishop Daniel Payne was one of the university’s original founders and became its first president after re-opening. Payne was the first African American to become a college president in the United States.

In the wake of an arson fire in 1865, the college was aided by donations from prominent white supporters and a grant from the US Congress to support rebuilding. It later would receive support from the state legislature. As a base for the college, the Cincinnati Conference brought a hotel, cottages and 54 acres of a former resort property near Xenia. It was named Tawawa House after the springs in the area, a word derived from a Shawnee term for clear or golden water. Based on its location, the resort area had attracted summer people from both Cincinnati and the South, particularly after completion of the Little Miami Railroad in 1846. Some people in the area of abolitionist sentiment were shocked when wealthy white Southern planters patronized the resort with their entourages of African-American mistresses and mixed-race children.

Given migration patterns, the area also was where numerous free people of color settled, many having moved across the Ohio River from the South to find better work and living conditions. Some were pushed from Southern states, which often required newly manumitted individuals to leave within a certain time period. Xenia had quite a large free black population, as well as other towns in southern Ohio, such as Chillicothe, Yellow Springs and Zanesville. Free blacks and anti-slavery white supporters used houses in Xenia as stations on the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. Wilberforce College also supported freedom-seeking slaves. Despite protest by men in the 1850’s, the college hired Frances E.W. Harper, an abolitionist poet, as the first woman to teach at the school.

It is notable that most of the students during the school’s earlier years were from the South, mixed race children of wealthy white planters and their African American mistresses. In 1888, the AME Church came to an agreement with the Republican Party dominated state legislature for financial support and political patronage to the college. It negotiated contemporary pressures to emphasize industrial education for many black youths by accommodating both that and the classical education. As an act of political patronage, the state legislature established a commercial, normal and industrial (CNI) department at Wilberforce College. While it created complications for the administration and questions about the mission of the college, in the near term it brought tens of thousands of dollars annually in state aid to the campus. Each state legislature could award an annual scholarship to the CNI department at Wilberforce, enabling hundreds of African American students to attend classes. The state-funded students could complete liberal arts at the college and students at Wilberforce could also take “industrial” classes.

The college became a center of black cultural and intellectual life in Southwestern Ohio. Due to the area not receiving many European immigrants, blacks had more opportunities at diverse work. Xenia and nearby towns developed a professional black elite. In 1941, the normal/industrial department was expanded by development of a four-year curriculum. In 1947, this section was split from the university and given independent status. It was renamed to Central State College in 1951. With further development of programs and departments, in 1965 it achieved university status as Central State University. The board named the school after a British abolitionist and statesman named William WIlberforce.

In 1857, St. Louis Public Schools established a normal school (teaching college) for white students; that was subsequently named Harris Teachers College, after William Torrey Harris, a former St. Louis superintendent of schools and United States Commissioner of Education. In 1920, it was authorized to issue a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Education degree. In 1890, the St. Louis school system established Sumner Normal School to train black teachers. In 1929, its name was changed to Stowe Teachers College, after author Harriet Beechers Stowe, whose novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had promoted the abolitionist cause in the antebellum United States. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education mandated integration of public school systems.

In response to this, Harris and Stowe Colleges were merged into one institution, which retained the “Harris Teachers College” name. At the behest of Stowe alumni and other St. Louisans, the name “Stowe” was added and the school became Harris-Stowe College. In 1979, the college was added to the state system of public higher education under the name of Harris-Stowe State College. Its four-year education degree was changed to a Bachelor of Science in Education. It subsequently expanded its programs to offer several new degrees in education, including the B.S. in Urban Education, designed to enable non-teaching urban education personnel to address problems specific to urban schools, and a degree in Business Administration with various professional options.

Following the founding of these institutions, others alike began to form throughout the country, mainly in the South. Many schools initially were geared towards teaching a specific trade to young African Americans in preparations for the workfield. There’s been 144 schools for African-Americans founded. Approximately 105 schools are still actively operating today, 54 of which are private institutions, while 51 are public. Subsequently 39 institutions were subject to closing, mainly due to financial discrepancies. About 15 schools closed before 1964, while 24 schools closed after 1964. There were 11 black junior colleges founded in Florida after the Brown v Board of Education decision in an attempt to show that separate but equal higher education facilities existed in Florida. All were abruptly closed after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lydon Johnson. It prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. The day of November 8, 1965 (approximately one year, four months and six days after the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), in the Title III of Higher Education Act of 1965, Congress officially defined a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) as a school of higher learning that was accredited and established before 1964, and whose principal mission was the education of Black Americans. Over the years HBCUs have encountered many struggles in different areas. Some don’t have the best living conditions for their students, while many don’t serve adequate food for students.

It’s evident that Historically Black Colleges or Universities don’t receive the same amount of government funding as schools who are considered to be bigger name schools. The psychological bearings of attending an HBCU send waves of constantly having to prove worthiness. Culture along with emotional connection to black institutions alter one’s ability to decipher what would be in the overall betterment of HBCUs. The sporting , entertainment, and other events are all ways that cycle revenue throughout educational institutions, although they aren’t the only ways. The inability to recruit top athletes across HBCU programs, yield individuals from attending many HBCU sporting events. Over the past two to three years, HBCUs have garnered massive amounts of attention, leading to some well deserved upgrades at some Historically Black institutions.

Prior, attending an HBCU was more about displaying pride in being black instead of the actual advancement of black individuals. Black institutions began to lose importance once changes started to happen in our society. Other schools began to have availability for black students and student athletes, which shifted attendance rates. Black students went to those schools and helped them become powerhouses in their respective fields, increasing merchandise sales as well as donations. The beloved black institutions became the child that nobody wanted, resulting in years of neglect and abandonment concerning important issues within the school. Recent attention that HBCUs are getting, shows a glimpse of the schools moving towards prominence.

During the mid 1800’s to the mid 1900’s, a good amount of abolitionists participated in the founding of black higher learning institutions. The 1890 Morrill Act contributed to the founding of black institutions, while others were founded by African-Americans. Over the course of time, some private institutions turned over control to the government. HBCUs provide an amazing opportunity for young black men and women, creating a space for them to go through their growing pains and evolve into productive beings in the world. The lack of heavy involvement with HBCUs from the black community, leaves the younger generation overlooking these institutions, for the opportunity to attend schools with brighter lights. There’s so much richness within HBCUs that has yet to be discovered, that a culture shift is bound to happen. Once black institutions are cared for entirely by the black community, we will see the elevation of all HBCUs.

The nurturing of black schools have diminished over the years for various reasons. HBCUs have been exploited consistently so that a selfish gain could be received by numerous individuals. By placing the nurturing elements back into these schools, self pride, acceptance, and love would be instilled into young black adults once again. The HBCU community is looking for a savior, when doing so the savior that matters is being overlooked. Every individual plays an important part in the progression of the black community. Attitude towards certain actions have to change, and can no longer justify actions based on the fact that other demographics partake in uncontrollable behavior. Being black is an enormous responsibility which results in many not wanting to carry the burden, rather allowing others to decide how much attention goes into black institutions. In many situations what is looked at as help, is the very thing that hinders.

All things prosper from within, outside resources only amplify what is already in motion!

Written By JAY BAYTHIN