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!
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
North Carolina A&T played an instrumental part in the Civil Rights Movement, as it produced the historic Greensboro Four. On February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, N.C., four A&T freshmen took a stand against racism and initiated a peaceful, civil rights sit-in protest. Ezell Blair, Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond sat down at a “whites-only” Woolworth’s lunch counter and refused to leave when denied service and stayed until the store closed. As the movement grew, more students from A&T, Bennett College, and neighboring institutions joined the original four in their sit-ins. Their efforts drew national attention and inspired similar sit-ins that eventually spread to 55 cities in 13 states. The four brave young men ushered in a new era of change, as Woolworths later desegregated their stores and lunch counters in July 1960, with others following suit even before the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On February 1, 2002, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University memorialized the Greensboro Four, also known as the A&T Four with a monument on the campus. The February One Monument portrays the four men in bronze, depicted in similar clothing they wore that day, and includes a summary of the sit-in.
Nashville HBCUs – Fisk University, Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, and American Baptist College
Before the Greensboro Four sparked a nationwide sit-in movement, students at Nashville’s black colleges including Fisk University, Tennessee A & I State University (Tennessee State University), Meharry Medical College, and American Baptist Theological Seminary (American Baptist College) were being trained by the Nashville Christian Leadership Council (NCLC) to participate in the upcoming movement. In 1959, under the leadership of NCLC and civil rights activist, Rev. James Lawson, the students first tested their non-violent direct action tactic against institutionalized segregation at segregated department stores, Harvey’s and Cain-Sloan’s. Although they were denied service, they did not receive any threats and they left the store quietly to continue planning their next move.
On February 13, 1960, the students launched their first full-scale sit-ins, meeting at the Arcade on Fifth Avenue and North in downtown Nashville and then splitting up to protest three nearby shops. The students were refused service at the S.H. Kress Department Store, Woolworths, and McClellan’s after they occupied the lunch counters for two hours until the owners of the shops closed for business for the day. For the next three months, the students continued the sit-ins, adding Greyhound and Trailways bus terminals, Grant’s variety store, Walgreen’s drugstore, and Cain-Sloan’s and Harvey’s department stores as targets. The protests turned violent on February 27, 1960, when protesters were attacked by angry white citizens. “The whites harassed the students,” the Tennessean reported, “Kicking them, spitting on them, calling them vulgar names, and putting cigarettes [sic] out on their backs.” Among the protesters were civil rights icon John Lewis, Diane Nash, James Bevel, Marion Barry, and others. The Nashville sit-ins marked the first of many times Lewis got into “good trouble” and was arrested for fighting for equal rights. He implemented a code of conduct to help the protesters maintain composure and de-escalate possibly violent situations whenever possible. “Don’t strike back or curse back if abused,” “Don’t block entrances to the stores and aisles,” and “Sit straight and always face the counter” were among the tips he offered his fellow activists. The student protesters endured the blows while police officers looked on and did nothing to help. The officers arrested 81 of the student protesters and charged them with disorderly conduct while every single member of the white mob walked free.
On April 19, 1960, white supremacists bombed the home of Z. Alexander Looby, the Black attorney who represented the students who protested. In response, thousands of protesters marched to City Hall to protest to Mayor Ben West. West met them on the front steps and publicly admitted to Fisk student leader Diane Nash that he felt that segregated lunch counters should come to an end. In the following weeks, civil rights leaders and local business owners worked on a plan to end segregation at six lunch counters in Nashville, including Woolworths, McLellans, Kress, Walgreens, Harveys, and Cain-Sloan. On May 10, 1960, Nashville became the first major city to begin desegregating its public facilities.
Tougaloo College
Tougaloo College played a central role in the civil rights movement as it provided refuge for weary Freedom Riders and hosted organizers and activists such as Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A group of undergraduate students known as “The Tougaloo Nine” staged sit-ins at segregated public institutions, most notably the Jackson Public Library in 1961. The Nine—Meredith Coleman Anding Jr., James Cleo Bradford, Alfred Lee Cook, Geraldine Edwards, Janice Jackson, Joseph Jackson Jr., Albert Earl Lassiter, Evelyn Pierce, and Ethel Sawyer—were members of the Jackson Youth Council of the NAACP. They were trained by the then-president of the NAACP Jackson branch, Medgar Evers, for the sit-in protest. They entered the library and sat at different tables reading books quietly, to which the librarian responded by calling the police on them. The students refused to leave and were arrested, sparking protests on their behalf. the Tougaloo Nine’s actions led the NAACP to file a class action lawsuit on January 12, 1962, against the Jackson Public library, calling for its integration. In June 1962 the district court judge ordered the library to desegregate. In addition to the Tougaloo Nine, students led voting registration drives, boycotts of white-only restaurants, and a successful campaign to encourage white entertainers not to participate in segregated performances in Jackson. Many students were arrested for trying to attend segregated white churches and concerts and were bailed out by the 1960 president, Dr. Adam Beittel. According to Ed King, the school chaplain during the height of the movement and a founder of the Freedom Democratic Party, Tougaloo College made sure to find ways to for students to complete their studies while also being involved in the movement.
Shaw 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.
South Carolina State University
In the 1960s South Carolina State University students participated in local civil rights demonstrations, and many were arrested. On February 8, 1968, the college gained national attention when highway patrol officers fired into a crowd of 200 unarmed students protesting against a segregated bowling alley. Three students were killed and 28 were wounded. The incident, known as the Orangeburg Massacre, was the country’s first deadly confrontation between law enforcement and students, according to the university. Out of the 70 officers that were present at the time of the shootings, only nine were charged and all nine were acquitted. The only that was convicted and jailed for the events surrounding the Orangeburg Massacre was Cleaveland Sellers, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was charged with inciting a riot and was pardoned 25 years later. Although the survivors never received justice, student protests continued, prompting the state government to provide more funding for the campus. In 1974 the 14-story Sojourner Truth Hall was constructed followed by the I.P. Stanback Museum & Planetarium, the only facility of its kind on an HBCU campus. In 2003, Governor Mark Sanford offered a written apology for the massacre. In 2006, Cleveland Sellers’ son Bakari Sellers was elected to the South Carolina Legislature and delivered an emotional speech at an SC State memorial service to honor those lost in the massacre, saying, “We join here today in our own memorial to remember three dead and 27 injured in yet another massacre that marked yet another people’s struggle against oppression. These men who died here were not martyrs to a dream but soldiers to a cause.”
