I graduated from Fordham University in NYC in 1991, close to 30 years behind schedule, (I graduated from high school in 1964) but when discussing my earlier college attendance in the ‘60s with a white friend, I mentioned having gone to Howard. “Harvard?” my friend queried. “No Howard,” I replied. I got a blank look. I have to admit I was taken aback, because in my black world there is no one who doesn’t know Howard University. Described as a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), for many black Americans Howard has been our “Harvard.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about Howard, where he went to school for 5 years, and where his dad had worked as a librarian, in his National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me:
"I was admitted to Howard University, but formed and shaped by The Mecca. These institutions are related but not the same. Howard University is an institution of higher education, concerned with the LSAT, magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. The Mecca is a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body. The Mecca derives its power from the heritage of Howard University, which in Jim Crow days enjoyed a near-monopoly on black talent. And whereas most other historically black schools were scattered like forts in the great wilderness of the old Confederacy, Howard was in Washington D.C. -- Chocolate City -- and thus in proximity to both federal power and black power. The result was an alumni and professorate that spanned genre and generation -- Charles Drew, Amiri Baraka, Thurgood Marshall, Ossie Davis, Doug Wilder, David Dinkins, Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Kwame Touré. The history, the location, the alumni combined to create The Mecca -- the crossroads of the black diaspora."
The list of those intellectually and politically birthed onto the world stage from Howard is long, and it continues to be that Mecca. Other HBCUs have illustrious graduates as well and deep ties to every aspect of black life. Presidential candidates show up on their campuses to hold rallies and forums, but rarely do the news items about these visits supply an historical context or modern-day significance.
I have personal and family ties to both Howard and other HBCUs. Howard was not the first college I attended. I was young, just 16, when I graduated from NYC’s High School of Music and Art—my parents wanted me to stay home—so I went to Hunter College, a City university. My Hunter experience was off-putting. There were only five other black students on its Bronx campus, along with one Puerto Rican, and it was the ‘60s—a time of rising consciousness about civil rights, and activism—and I wanted to go to a “black school.” Both of my parents had undergrad degrees from HBCU West Virginia State.
I had neighborhood girlfriends who were already at Howard, so I implored my parents to let me transfer. They agreed, if I could get a scholarship, since at the time, Hunter was free. I applied for and got a scholarship, and headed off to Washington, DC, in September of 1965. I was not aware of Howard’s rich and complex history until I got there. It was an experience that would transform my life.
The idea for Howard was born in November of 1866 and the school was originally a theological seminary:
10 members of the First Congregational Society of Washington, D.C., gathered in the home of Deacon Henry Brewster for a missionary session. While there, they resolved to establish a seminary to train African-American clergymen. By early 1867, the founders had broadened their mission to encompass colleges of liberal arts and medicine.
The result was the founding of the Howard Normal and Theological Institute for the Education of Preachers and Teachers. On Jan. 8, 1867, the board voted to change the name of the institution to Howard University. It was chartered by Congress on March 2, 1867 and accepted its first students the following May.
The name itself is one that has made me uncomfortable. Oliver Otis Howard was a civil war general, and after the war was over became the commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau. He played a key role in the founding of Howard. However, in 1877 he was sent to remove the Nez Percé, led by Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Chief Joseph, from their homelands.
“Old Main” Howard University
He was key in making Howard not simply a theological seminary:
On March 2, 1867, a vastly different institution from what was originally proposed was created. On that date “The Charter of Howard University” was passed by Congress establishing what some called a “National Negro University.” One of the many confusing facts about the founding of Howard University is the belief that the University was founded as a “theological” and “normal” school. However, the charter that established the University expressly stated that it was to be a “University for the Education of Youth in the Liberal Arts and Sciences.”
As one of the incorporators of Howard University, Howard explained why he supported African American education. Howard said "The opposition to Negro education made itself felt everywhere in a combination not to allow the freedmen any room or building in which a school might be taught. In 1865, 1866, and 1877 mobs of the baser classes at intervals and in all parts of the South occasionally burned school buildings and churches used as schools, flogged teachers or drove them away, and in a number of instances murdered them."
In 1867 construction was begun on “Old Main,” a dormitory, medical building, a hospital, and a home for General Howard, now known as “Howard Hall” which is a national landmark. Many of the later buildings, most notably Founders Librar,y were designed by African-American architect Albert J. Cassell.
Dr. Joseph Walker Roberts
My family ties are to that early Howard. My mother was raised in the home of her uncle, Dr. Joseph Roberts, who graduated from Howard Medical school in 1907, where he was sent by my grandfather Dennis Roberts, who worked as a sleeping car porter to get funds to send all of his brothers and sisters to college. They were the children of slaves from Virginia, and his mother—who could not read or write though she was a respected midwife in Loudoun County, VA—vowed she would see all her children educated.
I’m not sure how many people can appreciate the role played by Howard University, and other schools like Fisk’s Meharry Medical School in providing this country with sorely needed black doctors and other medical professionals. The story of the founding of Meharry deserves its own diary:
In the 1820s, 16-year-old Samuel Meharry was hauling a load of salt through Kentucky when his wagon slid off the road into a muddy ditch. With rain and nightfall limiting his options, Samuel searched for help. He saw a modest cabin that was home to a black family recently freed from slavery. The family, still vulnerable to slave hunters paid to return freedmen to bondage, risked their freedom to give Meharry food and shelter for the night.
At morning's light, they helped lift the wagon from the mud and Meharry continued his journey. The black family's act of kindness touched young Meharry so deeply that he vowed to repay it. I have no money now, he said as he departed, but, when I am able, I shall do something for your race. Tragically, history never recorded the name of the courageous black family, and perhaps their identity even receded in the mind of Samuel Meharry as he grew prosperous in the years that followed.
Even so, 40 years later, as the Civil War ended and black citizens began their long struggle for rights guaranteed by the Constitution, Meharry seized an opportunity to redeem his vow. When leading Methodist clergymen and laymen organized the Freedmen's Aid Society in August 1866, to elevate former slaves, intellectually and morally, Meharry acted. He and his four brothers Alexander, David, Hugh and Jesse, pledged their support to Central Tennessee College's emerging medical education program. With $30,000 in cash and real property, the Meharry brothers repaid the black family's Act of Kindness with one of their own.
Also sent to Howard by my grandfather, was his younger brother James, but grand-daddy “assigned” him to become a dentist.
Dentistry at Howard University, Washington, D.C., ca. 1900
The Howard University College of Dentistry was founded in 1881, and is the fifth oldest dental school in United States. An article published in The Crisis in 1979, “Afro-Americans in Dentistry: A Synopsis”, points out that between them, Howard and Meharry produced nearly all the black physicians and dentists in the United States.
As a side note, I’d like to mention that thanks to the work of W.E.B. DuBois, we have many photographs from this early period, which were compiled and sent to the Paris Exposition of 1900, which was presented as the "Exposition des Nègres d'Amerique," and was awarded a bronze medal.
It is impossible for me to list all of the contributions of Howard students and graduates here. The list on wikipedia is very long, as is the internet bio page. Suffice it to say that Howard has given the world many key figures in science, politics and the arts. This of course is only Howard—when we include graduates and students from other HBCUs, the impact is staggering. Yet, financial support for HBCUs is often overlooked by people giving to charities, and they are struggling financially. I wish I could reprint this entire QUARTZ article, written by Melvin Backman, from last June:
While everyone on the internet (Quartz included) was going on and on last week about John Paulson’s $400 million gift to Harvard University, Howard University was busy getting its bonds downgraded by Moody’s. It’s a sad bit of irony. Howard is sometimes considered the Harvard of historically black colleges and universities (a category that has its own acronym in America—HBCUs). But the two events lay bare the inequality between the two schools. Even though Howard is the richest of the HBCUs, it is struggling through painful budget cuts. More strikingly, as NPR’s Gene Demby notes, Paulson’s $400 million gift alone is larger than the entire endowment of almost every single HBCU in the country. Howard is the only exception.
It made me think of the television PSAs that I remember from years ago, urging people to support the United Negro College Fund, with the line “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.”
That ad campaign continues. While attention is being focused on the low black enrollment at elite white universities, there needs to be much more done to support HBCUs. As the QUARTZ piece points out, Howard “graduates black students at a better rate than the national average for all students.”
If you are thinking about doing any holiday giving, consider supporting an HBCU.
