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There are more than 100 historically black colleges in the United States, located almost exclusively in the southern and eastern states (four HBCUs are located in the midwestern states, two each in Missouri and Ohio; one is in the Virgin Islands). Morehouse College and Spelman College have been described as the Harvard College and the Radcliffe College, respectively, of the historically black higher-education institutions in the United States. Howard UniversityHoward University is a historically black college in Washington, D. It was established by a congressional charter in 1867, and much of its early funding came from the Freedmen's Bureau. Howard University has played an important role in civil rights histor and Tuskegee UniversityThere is also the Tuskegee Airmen, a corps of African-American military pilots trained there during World War II Tuskegee University is an American institution of higher learning located in Tuskegee, Alabama. The school opened on July 4, 1881 under the le are other significant HBCUs.
Famous graduates of historically black colleges include Andrew Young Jr.Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. born March 12, 1932) is a noted Civil rights activist, was the former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia and the United States's ambassador to the United Nations in the Jimmy Carter administration. Andrew Young was born in New Orleans, Lo, Toni MorrisonToni Morrison is an African-American author, born Chloe Anthony Wofford February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. She was also a professor at SUNY Albany. In 1965 she became a senior editor for Random House in New York City. Morrison achieved a Master of Arts de, Oprah WinfreyOprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi) is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the United States. She was meant to be named Orpah but it was misspelled on her birth certificate as Oprah''. An African American woman bor, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar EversMedgar Evers ( July 2, 1925 June 12, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi. Evers was a native of Decatur, Mississippi, and a graduate of Alcorn State University, located in Lorman, Mississippi. Upon completing his degree, h, Rosa ParksRosa Louise Parks (born February 4, 1913 as Rosa Louise McCauley is a retired seamstress and figure in the American Civil Rights Movement, most famous for her refusal to give up a bus seat to a white man and her subsequent arrest. Civil Rights Parks was b, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington.
Historically black colleges are not necessarily predominantly black today. One classic example can be found in West Virginia, whose population is nearly 95 percent white—higher than any other state outside of the three northern New England states. By 1964, the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University ) had become primarily a commuter college with a student body well over 80 percent white, which it remains to this day. Throughout this time, the school's administration has been primarily African-American.
See also: List of historically black colleges of the United States