Celebrate Black History and HBCUs’ Contribution
Since its inception, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have always led the way for social change. Many great black leaders have come from HBCUs including, Stokely Carmicheal (Howard University), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Morehouse College), Jesse Jackson (North Carolina A&T), Rosa Parks (Alabama State), and many others. HBCUs played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, serving as a breeding ground for future leaders and their fight for equality. HBCUs became the base for meetings, rallying centers, and training grounds for non-violent protests. Many important civil rights movement activities took place on or originated at HBCU campuses and this article serves to highlight a few of those revolutionary contributions.
Here are a few HBCUs & their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement!
4Shaw University
Shaw University, the oldest HBCU in the south, served as the birthplace of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The student-led, grassroots organization was dedicated to ensuring that people of color had the freedom to exercise their full rights as citizens. Civil rights icon and Shaw University alumna, Ella Baker founded SNCC at her alma mater in 1960, with the vision to empower young people to take action by providing them with resources and training. According to Baker biographer Barbara Ransby, Shaw University was “the most influential institution in Ella Baker’s early life,” next to the church. Dr. David C. Forbes, Sr, was a 19-year-old sophomore at Shaw when he became a founding member of SNCC. The first meeting took place over Easter weekend in 1960, where about 300 students met in the Greenleaf Auditorium on campus and in the nearby Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, according to Forbes. “I am extremely proud of Shaw’s central role in the civil rights movement,” Forbes said. “SNCC was the catalyst in the modern civil rights movement. It shook the foundation of racial segregation in the South. Up to that time, there had been little desegregation in public education, public accommodations, and employment.” The group helped organize sit-ins, the freedom rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and the Mississippi Freedom Summer. “We’re proud of that being just a little, small, black liberal arts school, and we were able to put a dent into the civil rights movement,” said William Lacy, a Shaw graduate and former member of the university’s Board of Trustees.
