expect, the vast majority of these schools are located in former slave states, but there are a few exceptions. There are different types of HBCUs, including community colleges, four-year schools, public institutions, private universities, and specialty institutions like medical and law schools.

Prior to the Civil War, there were no institutes of higher education for African Americans. To make matters worse, some parts of the country prohibited the education of black students. In 1837, Richard Humphreys founded the Institute for Colored Youth in Pennsylvania in order to provide education to students of color. The institute began as an agricultural and mechanical school and did not offer formal degrees until 1913 when it began training teachers. By then, it had changed its name to Cheyney University. It remains the oldest institute of postsecondary education for African Americans today. In 1854, Lincoln University was founded as the first degree-granting institute of higher education for African Americans. Today, it remains a vibrant historically black university and is ranked #20 among all HCBUs by US News & World Report. Two years later in 1856, Wilberforce University was founded as the first institute of higher education owned and operated by African Americans. The university continues to provide undergraduate and graduate degrees today.

With the few exceptions above, many African Americans (especially those located in the Southern states) were still hard-pressed to find institutions willing to provide them with any kind of postsecondary education until the year 1890 when the second Morrill Act was passed. The act mandated former Confederate states to open colleges for African American students that paralleled the traditionally white universities established by the first Morrill Act. This act allowed states to fund institutes of higher education through proceeds from the sale of federal land. The resulting schools became known as land grant colleges, and they were established in 17 states.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans must be granted “separate but equal” facilities, including those that provided educational services, in the landmark case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In reality, though, institutes of higher education for black students often received less public funding, and therefore, were almost always of lower quality than traditionally white schools. In many cases, the teachers were poorly prepared, and important equipment and resources such as textbooks, for instance, were often inferior. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned by another landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education when the Supreme Court called for the desegregation of all schools in the United States. Though segregation is no longer an issue in the US, HCBUs still honor their origins and continue their plight for excellence in education for African Americans.