Right now it is time for the Way Black History Fact, and for today's Way Black History Fact, We're going to discuss.
The history of HBCUs.
For folks that are unfamiliar, HBCU stands for historically Black college and university. And if you only get your news from Fox News, you might be thinking, why do they have those?
Well, we're about to explain it to you. All right.
This comes from Thurgood Marshall College Funds website and if you want to check it out, it's TMCF dot org.
We've deemed that to be a reputable source.
So historically, Black colleges and universities or HBCUs were established in the United States early in the nineteenth century to provide undergraduate and graduate level education opportunities to.
People of African descent.
Black students were unwelcome at existing public and private uni institutions of higher education even after passing specific legislation, resulting in a lack of higher education opportunities. Got a bear in mind resegregation at the time, and you need black doctors and white doctors, right, and black doctors can't go to the white schools.
They need to make their own schools. So this is kind of the origin story here all right.
In seventeen ninety nine, Washington Lee University admitted John Javis, who was noted as the first African American on record to attend college. However, the first African American to have earned a bachelor's degree from an American university, Alexander Lucia's Twilight, graduated from Middlesbury College in eighteen twenty three. Three decades later, Mary Jane Patterson was the first African American woman to earn a bachelor's degree, graduating from the abolitionist centered Oberlin
College in eighteen sixty two. These individuals were singular in accessing higher education. Richard Humphries established the African Institute in Pennsylvania, making it the oldest HBCU.
In the United States. It's now called Cheney University.
Its mission was to teach free African American skills for gainful employment. Students were taught reading, writing, and basic math, alongside religion and industrial arts. During the eighteen fifties, three more HBCUs were founded Minor Normal School in eighteen fifty one in Washington, d C. Lincoln University in eighteen fifty four in Pennsylvania, and Wilberforce In eighteen fifty six in Ohigh, the Ame Church established Wilberfirst University, the first HBCU operated
by African Americans. The provision of education for people of African descent and early America was recognized by some as unnecessary and criminal, while others saw it as essential and vital.
Sound familiar all right.
The majority of HBCUs originated from eighteen sixty five to nineteen hundred, with the greatest number of HBUs started in eighteen sixty seven, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and approximately eighty nine percent of all HBCUs are in the southern region of the United States, although they can be found in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. North Carolina hosts eleven HBCUs, Louisiana has seven,
and Alabama has twelve. While many consider HBCUs to be a homogeneous group, there are levels of diversity within this unique classification of institutions, not only by academic distinction and
socioeconomic status, but also in student demographics. In addition, HBCUs have diverse classifications public, private, denominational, liberal arts, land grant independent university system, single gender serving research based large and small, with enrollment numbers that range from less than three hundred to over eleven thousand students.
And the reason we wanted.
To share this one, of course, is because it's consistent with our guests and their plight, but also so that you understand that education is not, nor has it been the same for people around the country, and for those of you who count yourselves allies that may not have had anyone explain why things.
Look a little different.
You know, there's a lot of factors that go into education that are unique, that manifest in education before they manifest in the workforce or and you know, other types of data, and there is indeed an origin story that you may not be aware of, and so we wanted to make sure to illuminate this. Of course, there's more research for you to do, and we invite you to do that at your leisure, but hopefully we've given you a starting point