The Significance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the 21st Century: Will Such Institutions of Higher Learning Survive?

• Published date: 01 May 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12191
• Date: 01 May 2017
• Author: Earnest N. Bracey

The Significance of Historically Black

Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the

21

st

Century: Will Such Institutions

of Higher Learning Survive?

By EARNEST N. BRACEY*

ABSTRACT. The United States is still dealing with institutional racism in

higher education. For most of the past two centuries, African Americans

were forced to attend segregated colleges and universities. Historically

black colleges and universities (HBCUs) played a particularly important

role during that long period. In many states, there would have been no

institutions of higher education at all, were it not for federal legislation

(the Morrill Act of 1890), the actions of religious institutions, and the

persistent efforts of black Americans to gain an education, despite the

obstacles. Even the seemingly race-neutral G.I. Bill of 1944 had the

pernicious effect of reinforcing racial segregation in both higher

education and housing. Given this history, it comes as no surprise that

some predominantly white institutions of higher education (PWIs) do

not show a sustained commitment to educate African-American

students in this country, although they are often eager to recruit black

student athletes for their various sport programs without much regard

to the education received by those same athletes. Our inability as a

nation to even talk intelligently about these intractable educational

problems is disturbing. Indeed, diversity is not paramount for some

PWIs, particularly in regards to hiring minority faculty. Perhaps more

significantly, HBCUs are still necessary in our society today because

they have been the mainstay of educating African Americans at the

college and university levels. Black communities throughout our nation

*Professor of Political Science and African American History at the College of South-

ern Nevada. Author of Prophetic Insight: The Higher Education of African

Americans (1999), The Moulin Rouge and Black Rights in Las Vegas (2009), Daniel

“Chappie” James (2003), On Racism (2003), and Fannie Lou Hamer: Life of a Civil

Rights Icon (2011). Co-author of American Politics and Culture Wars (1997). Retired

Army Lieutenant Colonel, with over 20 years of active military service.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 76, No. 3 (May, 2017).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12191

V

C2017 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

are still being devastated by economic polarization and by racial

discrimination endemic to higher education at white institutions. The

need to address the problem of racial discrimination in higher

education remainsas strong as ever.

Introduction: An Unbroken Thirst for Knowledge

If the United States were truly a land of equal opportunity, there would

never have been a need to create colleges and universities specifically

for African Americans. Yet, historically black colleges and universities

(HBCUs) still exist today as a legacy of the past. As Roebuck and Murty

(1993: 3, 4) describe them:

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are black academic

institutions established prior to 1964 whose principal mission was, and

still is, the education of black Americans . ... They were founded and

developed in an environment unlike that [of] surrounding other col-

leges—that is, in a hostile environment marked by legal segregation and

isolation from mainstream U.S. higher education . ... They have main-

tained a very close identity with the struggle of blacks for survival,

advancement, and equality in American society. ... These institutions

have championed the cause of equal opportunity, have provided an

opportunity for many who would not otherwise have graduated from

college, and have served as the custodians of the archives for black

Americans and as centers for the study of black culture.

The first HBCUs were established in the late 1800s by ex-slaves (and

others) in black churches, or they were affiliated with Christian denomi-

nations. They were built because the promise of true freedom at the

end of the American Civil War was never fulfilled.

During more than two centuries of slavery, African Americans were

generally denied any form of education. Following the Stono Rebellion

in 1739 in South Carolina, many states adopted laws that made it illegal

to teach a slave to write, and the lawswere strengthened after Nat Turn-

er’s Revolt of 1831 (Woodson1915: 193–196). Yet, the laws never broke

the spirit of resistancethat enabled close to 10 percent of African Ameri-

cans in the South to achieve literacy by 1865. Despite continued vio-

lence against them, black southerners managed to achieve a literacy

21

st

-Century Significance of Black Colleges and Universities 671