BLACK FACTS: HBCUs

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Morris Brown College

http://www.morrisbrown.edu/default.htm

This is Morris Brown's 125th Year in Education.



College Information - History
On October 15, 1885, just 22 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, 107 students and nine teachers walked into a crude wooden structure at the comer of Boulevard and Houston Streets in Atlanta, Georgia, marking the formal opening of the first educational institution in Georgia under sole African American patronage. That institution was Morris Brown College, named to honor the memory of the second consecrated Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.

The circumstances that evoked the founding of Morris Brown are traditionally linked to a visit by a group of Clark College trustees to Big Bethel Church to interest the AME supporters in furnishing a room in their institution. In response to the proposition they presented, layman Steward Wiley said, "If we can furnish a room at Clark College, why can't we build a school of our own?" These words ignited a flame in the mind of the Reverend Wesley John Gaines. On January 5, 1881, during the North Georgia Annual Conference at Big Bethel, he introduced a resolution calling for the establishment in Atlanta of an institution for the moral, spiritual, and intellectual growth of Negro boys and girls. The steps between the resolution and the opening were few and simple: The Georgia Conference was persuaded to join in the endeavor. An assembly of trustees from both conferences convened in Big Bethel Church and selected the Boulevard site as the school's home. In May of 1885, the State of Georgia granted a charter to Morris Brown College of the AME Church.

The fact of its founding as a child of the church not only determined the institution's philosophical thrust, but also created a system of support which functioned to channel its early energies toward developing programs to serve the needs of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. The College, at that time, was largely dependent upon a denomination whose constituency was primarily unskilled, untrained, and economically unstable. In order to survive, the College had to absorb into its enrollment a large segment of underachieving students whose parents were loyal supporters of the Church that kept its doors open. What began as survival strategy of Morris Brown in 1881 became the liberation cry for Black masses and the country at large in the 1960s. At that point of higher education, that cry was heard in all colleges Black and White, large and small, state and private in the form of pressures to develop programs in tune with the needs of economically disadvantaged youth. For Morris Brown, however, it was a matter of doing what came naturally better and more effectively.

If there is uniqueness about Morris Brown, it is perhaps a kind of institutional flexibility, based on the assumption that a college can serve the needs of all students with the desire and the potential to earn a college degree. In a campus atmosphere conducive to well balanced growth, and an academic program consisting of course content, course requirements, and teaching methods geared toward the preparation, motivation and achievement levels of all students the College not only has inspired average and better than average students to great heights of achievement in competition, but has also transformed sensitive "high risk" students into performers far better than their credentials suggest them capable.

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Paul Quinn College

http://www.pqc.edu/index.htm

Paul Quinn College was founded by a small group of African Methodist Episcopal circuit-riding preachers in Austin, Texas, April 4, 1872. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, under the leadership of Bishop J. M. Brown opened the College. In 1877, the College was moved to Waco, Texas and was called Waco College, where it was established in a modest one-building trade school that taught newly freed slaves the skills of blacksmithing, carpentry, tanning, and saddle work.

Later under the direction of Bishop William Paul Quinn, A.M.E districts were developed throughout the South and funds became available to improve the College. Under Bishop Quinn’s direction, the College expanded in land ownership and over time purchased more than twenty acres. The College’s curriculum also expanded to include Latin, mathematics, music, theology, English, carpentry, sewing, household and kitchen and dining room work.

In May 1881, the College was chartered by the State of Texas, and, in that same year, the name was changed to Paul Quinn College, in commemoration of Bishop William Paul Quinn. Bishop Quinn served as representative of the western small states for approximately thirty years.

For more than 131 years, the sustenance and growth of the College has been the result of strong and determined leadership; a leadership with tenacity, an indefatigable spirit, and a love for humankind. It is this legacy of faith that has also led the College to its current location.

In 1990, Paul Quinn College relocated to Dallas, Texas, and, under the direction of a committed Board of Trustees and a visionary President, the College continues to grow and expand. Through vision and faithful determination, the College has achieved record enrollments in student growth, support from the surrounding community, fiscal stability, soundness with the academic programs, and moral and spiritual strength. Paul Quinn College now celebrates a thirteen-year period in Dallas.


Bishop William Paul Quinn

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Clark Atlanta University

http://www.cau.edu/



Clark Atlanta University is a comprehensive, private, urban, coeducational institution of higher education with a predominantly African-American heritage. It offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees as well as certificate programs to students of diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It was formed by the consolidation of Atlanta University, which offered only graduate degrees, and Clark College, a four-year undergraduate institution oriented to the liberal arts.

The first President of Clark Atlanta University was Dr. Thomas W. Cole, Jr., who served concurrently as the President of both Atlanta University and Clark College prior to consolidation. In November 1987, after more than a year of discussion, the Boards of Trustees of Atlanta University and Clark College authorized an exploration of the potential advantages of closer working arrangements between the two institutions, including their consolidation into one university. In April 1988, the joint committee delivered its report entitled Charting A Bold New Future: Proposed Combination of Clark College and Atlanta University to the Boards for ratification. The report recommended that the two schools be consolidated into a single institution. On June 24, 1988, the Boards of both Clark College and Atlanta University made the historic decision to consolidate the two institutions, creating Clark Atlanta University. The new and historic University inherits the rich traditions of two independent institutions, connected over the years by a common heritage and commitment; by personal, corporate and consortia relationships; and by location.

Atlanta University, founded in 1865, by the American Missionary Association, with later assistance from the Freedman's Bureau, was, before consolidation, the nation's oldest graduate institution serving a predominantly African-American student body. By the late 1870s, Atlanta University had begun granting bachelor's degrees and supplying black teachers and librarians to the public schools of the South. In 1929-30, it began offering graduate education exclusively in various liberal arts areas, and in the social and natural sciences. It gradually added professional programs in social work, library science, and business administration. At this same time, Atlanta University affiliated with Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in a university plan known as the Atlanta University System. The campus was moved to its present site, and the modern organization of the Atlanta University Center emerged, with Clark College, Morris Brown College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center joining the affiliation later. The story of the Atlanta University over the next twenty years from 1930 includes many significant developments. The Schools of Library Science, Education, and Business Administration were established in 1941, 1944, and 1946 respectively. The Atlanta School of Social Work, long associated with the University, gave up its charter in 1947 to become an integral part of the University. In 1957, the controlling Boards of the six institutions (Atlanta University; Clark, Morehouse, Morris Brown and Spelman Colleges; and Gammon Theological Seminary) ratified new Articles of Affiliation. Unlike the old Articles of 1929, the new contract created the Atlanta University Center. The influence of Atlanta University has been extended through professional journals and organizations, including Phylon and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for both of which Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, a member of the faculty, provided leadership.

Clark College was founded in 1869 as Clark University by the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which later became the United Methodist Church. The University was named for Bishop Davis W. Clark, who was the first President of the Freedmen's Aid Society and became Bishop in 1864. A sparsely furnished room in Clark Chapel, a Methodist Episcopal Church in Atlanta's Summerhill section, housed the first Clark College Class. In 1871, the school relocated to a new site on the newly purchased Whitehall and McDaniel Street property. In 1877, the School was chartered as Clark University.

An early benefactor, Bishop Gilbert Haven, visualized Clark as the "university" of all the Methodist schools founded for the education of freedmen. Strategically located in the gateway to the South, Clark was founded to "give tone" to all of the other educational institutions of the Methodist Episcopal Church providing education for Negro youth. After the school had changed locations several times, Bishop Haven, who succeeded Bishop Clark, was instrumental in acquiring 450 acres in South Atlanta, where in 1880 (the institution relocated in 1883) the school conferred its first degree. Also in 1883, Clark established a department, named for Dr. Elijah H. Gammon, known as Gammon School of Theology, which in 1888 became an independent theological seminary and is now part of the Interdenominational Theological Center.

For purposes of economy and efficiency, during the 1930's, it was decided that Clark would join the Atlanta University Complex. While students on the South Atlanta campus fretted over final examinations in the winter of 1939, work was begun across town on an entirely new physical plant adjoining Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.

During the 1980s some of the advantages of proximity, which had seemed promising earlier, again became evident. Clark College and Atlanta University through consolidation preserved the best of the past and present and "Charted a Bold New Future." Clark Atlanta University was created on July 1, 1988.

Dr. Walter D. Broadnax became the second President for Clark Atlanta University on August 1, 2002.