HBCUs: The Blueprint for Black American Leadership

Before the Civil War ended—before most African Americans were legally allowed to learn to read—the foundation of Black excellence was already being laid.

It started in the North with 'The Big Three': Cheyney University (1837), Lincoln University (1854), and Wilberforce University (1856). These institutions were created out of absolute necessity. Because Black students were shut out of white institutions, Black churches, the American Missionary Association, and the Freedmen's Bureau built their own—places where students could not only get an education, but could do so without being told they didn't belong.

Following that early lead, the movement exploded after the Civil War. Between 1861 and 1900, more than 90 additional HBCUs were established. Shaw University in North Carolina. Howard University in Washington, D.C. Morehouse College in Atlanta. Talladega College in Alabama. Hampton University in Virginia.

These weren't just schools. They were sanctuaries. They were launching pads. They were the only places in America where young Black students could walk onto a campus and see themselves reflected in their professors, their classmates, their future.

And the leaders they produced changed the country.

W.E.B. Du Bois. Booker T. Washington. Ida B. Wells. Thurgood Marshall. Martin Luther King Jr. Toni Morrison. Oprah Winfrey. Spike Lee. Alice Walker. Kamala Harris. The list goes on and on.

HBCUs educated the architects of the civil rights movement. They trained the lawyers who dismantled Jim Crow. They nurtured the writers, artists, scientists, and activists who pushed this country toward justice—often while the rest of America was still trying to keep them out.

Today, HBCUs make up only 3% of colleges and universities in the United States. But they produce nearly 20% of all Black undergraduate degrees and serve as the primary pipeline for Black professional success. These institutions produce 25% of Black graduates in STEM fields and a staggering share of the nation's Black doctors, dentists, and lawyers. They remain the undisputed engines of Black leadership, scholarship, and excellence.

These institutions were built in the face of impossible odds. They thrived when the country tried to ignore them. And they continue to do what they've always done: open doors, create opportunity, and prove what's possible when education is treated as a right, not a privilege.

That's not just history. That's a blueprint.

If you want to see this story come to life, check out the PBS documentary "Tell Them We Are Rising." Here's the preview: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/tell-them-we-are-rising/