African American Experiences of HBCUs After Integration Period

Racial integration of the school systems was one of the biggest educational reforms in American history. Before the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case in 1954, segregated schooling was required by law in Southern and border states. It was not until the 1960s that the decision of this case, to integrate American schools, was implemented by the government. Although African American students had been attending schools with white students in some parts of the United States, the integration changes that resulted from the Brown decision had finally made it illegal to allow segregation throughout the country. Because of this major change in America’s educational system, this essay explores how African American experiences of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) changed or remained the same after the beginning of major integration in the 1960s onward.

Education has often been a status symbol that dictates where an individual stands in society. Walter Allen, a writer for Journal of Negro Education, explained, “we were told the educational gap between blacks and whites was the reason for our subjugated status in society”^[1]. Many African American families wished for better opportunities to have their children become educated at superior schools that would not “stunt their learning and self-esteem,”^[2] but before the Brown decision they had no other options. After the Brown decision was implemented, more African American students began to attend colleges and universities. Historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, also saw a surge in numbers of African American students shortly after the Brown decision was implemented. Once the implementation of the Brown decision began to take effect in the educational reforms of the 1960s, more African Americans were able to experience a college education at traditionally white institutions (or TWIs), while historically black colleges and universities (or HBCUs) saw a wider racial array of students who began to apply to their schools. HBCUs started getting more non-African American applicants and lost many prospective African American students to TWIs.

The resulting change that came from the Brown decision “opened the doors to higher education for many African American students,”^[3] as tons of TWIs began to change their admissions standards to be fair to all students – regardless of race. “Prior to the 1950s,” Allen wrote, “blacks were exclusively educated at HBCUs”^[4]. As predicted, the Brown decision not only resulted in more African American students being able to attend HBCUs, but also to be able to attend institutions of higher education that had almost exclusively been white dominated since their inception. By 1975, “approximately three quarters”^[5] of African American students attending colleges or universities across the country were receiving their education from formerly white dominated institutions. There was finally more African American students being afforded the opportunity to defeat racial bigotry in order to attend institutions of higher learning.

Not only were more African American students attending more HBCUs, they were also able to attend traditionally white institutions (TWIs). Because more African American students were beginning to attend TWIs in general compared to HBCUs, this led to the fear that HBCUs would become obsolete. HBCUs did, however, continue to serve as important educational conduits for African American students, and remained “a touchstone for the Black community.”^[6] Even though TWIs possessed a large amount of the African American student population in higher education, HBCUs still continued to educate and graduate “a disproportionate share of black college students.”^[7] HBCUs have roughly “one hundred or so”^[8] institutions today. Although HBCUs make up only “three percent”^[9] of the student population of all those involved in higher education, they still enroll “just under one fifth”^[10] of the entire pool of African American college students.

HBCUs have continued to serve as educational channels for African Americans and others alike, but they had experienced changes since the Brown decision was put in place. Walter Allen conducted research on how “the relevance and mission,” of HBCUs, “have shifted and evolved”^[11] in accordance with the changing times. The “modern Civil Rights movement,” as Allen described it, needed scholars of HBCUs to begin a “reassessment of the role of these institutions within what has been referred to as a post-Civil Rights context.”^[12] Initially HBCUs had been created on an “industrial/vocational model”^[13] that had been led by Booker T. Washington to teach former slaves and how to support themselves with a trade. However, as more HBCUs were established, their curriculum became more diversified and started to focus more on the liberal arts. W.E.B. Du Bois was typically associated with the call for “access to the liberal arts,” explained Allen. This stood in stark contrast to the “restriction of black students to vocational education,”^[14] as Booker T. Washington had often been accused of endorsing.

HBCUs had seen major changes since the integration movement in the 1960s. For example, Langston University in Oklahoma used to have only African American students attending their school. Because of the integration implementations that had occurred since the 1960s, the student population at this HBCU was last recorded at “thirty-seven percent”^[15] white in 1999. Additionally, Lincoln University in Missouri – another HBCU – also experienced major changes to their student population in terms of the ratio between black and white students. By 1999, white students made up “nearly three quarters”^[16] of the student body. While African American students were mostly receiving their educations from TWIs, HBCUs started seeing more non-African American coming to their schools. While these differences were not necessarily true for every HBCU across the nation, the integration implementations were certainly responsible for the changes.

During the 1960s, more African American students had begun to enroll in TWIs that had formerly rejected them solely because of their race. Once the federal government mandated they would “pull funding”^[17] from academic institutions that refused to comply with the Brown decision, TWIs flung their doors open to African American students. Better still, the TWIs even began “providing financial aid”^[18] to economically disadvantaged students who were in need of assistance to afford tuition. One of the downsides of this change in school choices for African American students was the dropoff of enrollment to HBCUs. The total number of African American students, especially those with high test scores and grade point averages that normally only applied to and enrolled in HBCUs, “began to decline.”^[19] This shift in African American students going from HBCUs to TWIs – in addition to the new “open door policy”^[20] of HBCUs which encouraged students of any race to attend in spite of having historically African American backgrounds – led to “demonstrative gaps”^[21] in terms of academic achievement between African American students at HBCUs and their counterparts at PWIs.

When the integration implementations were still relatively fresh in the 1970s, there were concerns from some advocates of HBCUs that their schools would succumb to issues stemming from a shortage of tuition funds and a lack of student enrollment with the increased flight of African American students who left HBCUs for TWIs. Those who wished to ensure the economic survival of HBCUs during this shift proposed “major adaptations in their curriculums and programs,”^[22] in addition to tweaking tuition and other costs to be “kept lower”^[23] than other institutions – like TWIs. These demands were made with the hopes that HBCUs would retain more African American students in order to keep the schools running. This was because the fear of their becoming obsolete had still been a major concern in the 1970s. As Marion Thorpe put it, the hope for anxious HBCU advocates in the 1970s would only be achieved through “the mechanism of change from its current method of functioning,”^[24] so there had been a desire on the part of many HBCU leaders to cater to the changes brought upon them by the then recent integration laws.

The need was evident among HBCUs that there had to be some changes made in order to survive after the integration implementations took place. While HBCUs have continued to exist and thrive even in the present day, many relied on the new open door policy to continue generating revenue. By having more non-African American students attend HBCUs, most were able to endure the shift of African American students leaving for TWIs. Another positive contributing factor that helped HBCUs endure this flight of African American students was the fact that they received “substantial financial support”^[25] from federal and state contributions. From 1977 to 2001, up to “seventy-three percent”^[26] of public HBCUs’ revenues were gained through public funds. Private HBCUs, though they received less funding from the state, still generated “one third”^[27] of their revenue from public funds. That had been a critical time to receive public funding to save their schools. This was because HBCUs had been hurting from losing so many prospective African American students to TWIs. On top of the assistance from the state, these academic institutions – that had been historically black – never barred non-African Americans from attending either. Having more non-African American students admitted to their schools helped the fiscal dilemma of HBCUs as well. By having encouraged white students and others to come to their schools, these academic institutions simply adapted to the times.

While many HBCUs had been able to change and overcome their difficulties from the decrease in student enrollment, other schools had found it hard to overcome the “critical declines”^[28] in student enrollment. In spite of the fact that HBCUs served an important historical role by helping African American students achieve success, some ended up having to attempt to justify their existence. In the US vs. Fordice Supreme Court case of 1992, state legislatures were tasked with finding “educational justification”^[29] for the continued existence of HBCUs. The Supreme Court had argued that HBCUs would have to be integrated if they were not able to provide educational justification. While many HBCUs had drastically altered their methods to allow for an “increase in non-black students,” some were never able to meet the new educational standards imposed on them by the Supreme Court and succumbed to “critical declines”^[30] in their financial assets.

Another unfortunate downside to the shift in African American students leaving for TWIs was enduring the social hostilities from racist white peers. Many African American students at these TWIs felt “alienated”^[31] in these new environments, and had to endure racial bigotry during their time at school that resulted in detriments to their psychological and emotional well-being. African American students at TWIs in the 1960s and 1970s often lamented that they had not “felt welcome”^[32] to participate in student activities. They also reported having felt “more like appendages that were to be tolerated but not integrated” into the whole of the academic institutions they had been attending. To combat these feelings of ill-will against African American students, Black Student Unions had been started at many TWIs. The unions served as a resource to help aid the difficulties of being a minority in a socially unforgiving environment. Many of these Black Student Unions were developed “during the late 1960s”^[33] to provide a network for African American students to feel less isolated at TWIs.

In a more recent study of HBCUs, it was found that “eighty-three percent”^[34] of students who attended the schools were African American. While HBCUs went through a lot of changes after the integration implementations, they still continued to be largely composed of African American students. This showed that the earlier fears of HBCUs becoming obsolete in the 1970s never turned out to be as real as some had suspected. Contrary to most of the patterns regarding African American flight from HBCUs to TWIs that emerged shortly after the integration period, enrollment in HBCUs had “recently increased”^[35] according to the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis Journal. This study also indicated that student enrollment – regardless of race – at HBCUs had actually gone up. The results were a “fifteen percent increase between 1986 and 1990,”^[36] so HBCUs had been able to serve a purpose and had continued to make positive contributions to the educational field.

HBCUs had their fair share of hardships, as did many African American students. The integration movement that the Brown decision created had always been a noble cause, but it had proved somewhat detrimental to the overall well-being of HBCUs and African American students. When considering the current state of HBCUs being on the rise, it looks as though the initial desire to desegregate schools has finally started to pay off. Even though many African American students left HBCUs to take the chance to gain recognition for academic excellence at TWIs in the following decades after the integration movement, HBCUs still matter. While HBCUs no longer serve an entirely African American student body, the integration movement had been vital in helping people of all races be given an opportunity to choose where they wanted to receive an education.

 

^[1]           Walter R. Allen, “Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Honoring the Past, Engaging the Present, Touching the Future,” Journal of Negro Education 76, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 263, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/40034570 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[2] Allen, 264.

^[3]  Allen, 264.

^[4]  Allen, 264.

^[5]  Allen, 264.

^[6]  Allen, 264.

^[7]  Allen, 264.

^[8]  Allen, 264.

^[9]  Allen, 264.

^[10] Allen, 264.

^[11]  Allen, 265.

^[12]  Allen, 266.

^[13]  Allen, 267.

^[14]  Allen, 268.

^[15]         “The Racial Integration of Historically Black Universities: High Praise for the State of North Carolina,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 26 (Winter 1999): 74, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/40034570 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[16] “The Racial Integration,” 74.

^[17] Allen, 269.

^[18]  Allen, 270.

^[19] Allen, 270.

^[20] Allen, 270.

^[21] Allen, 270.

^[22]         Marion D. Thorpe, “The Future of Black Colleges and Universities in the Desegregation and Integration Process,” Journal of Black Studies 6, no. 1 (Sepember 1975): 103, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/2783751 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[23] Thorpe, 103.

^[24] Thorpe, 104.

^[25]         Roland G. Fryer and Michael Greenstone, “The Changing Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2, no. 1 (January 2010): 117, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/25760195 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[26] “The Changing Consequences,” 117.

^[27] “The Changing Consequences,” 117.

^[28] “The Changing Consequences,” 117.

^[29] “The Changing Consequences,” 117.

^[30] “The Changing Consequences,” 117.

^[31]         Joy Ann Williamson, “In Defense of Themselves: The Black Student Struggle for Success and Recognition at Predominantly White Colleges and Universities,” The Journal of Negro Education 68, no. 1 (Winter 1999): 92, http://doi.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/10.2307/2668212 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[32] Williamson, 95.

^[33] Williamson, 95.

^[34]         Harold H. Wenglinsky, “The Educational Justification of Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Policy Response to the U. S. Supreme Court,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 18, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 92, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/1164232 (accessed April 19, 2016).

^[35] Wenglinsky, 92.

^[36] Wenglinsky, 92.

Bibliography

Allen, Walter R., Joseph O. Jewell, Kimberly A. Griffin, and De’Sha S. Wolf. 2007. “Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Honoring the Past, Engaging the Present, Touching the Future”. The Journal of Negro Education 76 (3). Journal of Negro Education: 263–80. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/40034570.

Fryer, Roland G., and Michael Greenstone. 2010. “The Changing Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities”. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2 (1). American Economic Association: 116–48. http:// www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/25760195

“The Racial Integration of Historically Black Universities: High Praise for the State of North Carolina”.1999. “The Racial Integration of Historically Black Universities: High Praise for the State of North Carolina”. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 26. JBHE Foundation, Inc: 74–75. doi:10.2307/2999167.

Thorpe, Marion D.. 1975. “The Future of Black Colleges and Universities in the Desegregation and Integration Process”. Journal of Black Studies 6 (1). Sage Publications, Inc.: 100– 112. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.trincoll.edu/stable/2783751.

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Williamson, Joy Ann. 1999. “In Defense of Themselves: The Black Student Struggle for Success and Recognition at Predominantly White Colleges and Universities”. The Journal of Negro Education 68 (1). Journal of Negro Education: 92–105. doi: 10.2307/2668212.