One important contribution of the African-American community to our nation’s history and future prosperity are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The founders of these institutions recognized, as Frederick Douglass once said, that education “means emancipation.” Since their origination (beginning with Pennsylvania’s Cheney University in 1837) to the present day, these schools have understood that a quality education can give people the knowledge, skills and tools to reach their promise and to challenge the structural barriers created by institutional racism.
HBCUs have produced African-American leaders in every field: including civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (Morehouse), NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson (West Virginia State University), founder of the Children’s Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman (Spelman), and Microsoft Chairman John Thompson (Florida A&M). HBCUs also produce a disproportionate number of black graduates in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Take Xavier, for example, which awards more undergraduate degrees in the biological and physical sciences to African-American students than any other university in the nation.
HBCUs also have been at the vanguard of civil rights advancements from the pivotal role of Howard Law School Dean Charles Hamilton Houston in crafting the legal strategy to defeat Jim Crow and the brilliant victory of his star student Thurgood Marshall in Brown v. Board of Education to the North Carolina A&T students who led the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C.
Continued:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o... By John B. King Jr.
Posted By: Cheer Leader
Tuesday, February 27th 2018 at 11:54AM
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