FOR GENERATIONS TO COME: SOUTHERN HBCUs AND THEIR COLORED CONVENTIONS ROOTS

INTRODUCTION: POSTBELLUM SOUTHERN CONVENTIONS AND EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE

Since 1837 and the founding of the first HBCU, Cheyney University, over 120 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been established. Most of them opened their doors in the South in the years after four million enslaved people tried to enact the freedom that had been announced as the Civil War came to a close. By 2019, 107 HBCUs still educate students from all over the United States and well beyond. This exhibit seeks to understand their founding histories and the impact they have had on Black communities at home and abroad. The HBCUs featured in this exhibit were founded by Black leaders in religion, education, farming, and other businesses, and by everyday people in communities who believed education would pave the way to freedom and citizenship. Many of these institutions were founded with the assistance from white philanthropists, educators, and missionaries. Although Black activists were central in establishing and sustaining Black educational institutions, narratives about their founding often obscure the leadership roles and the collective support of Black communities. This exhibit asks two important questions: How can we center the educational activism, labor, and vision of the Black founders of HBCUs? What insights and historical interventions can we learn from doing so?

This exhibit explores how Southern Black conventions were integral to the establishment or support of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). This exhibit focuses on three conventions: the 1865 Colored Men’s Convention in Mobile, Alabama, the 1871 Southern State Convention of Colored Men in Columbia, South Carolina, and the 1884 State Conference of the Colored Men of Florida. Talladega College and Florida A&M University both emerged out of state conventions. Conventions that brought together delegates across a region also highlight educational activism throughout the South. Placing Southern conventions at the center of these founding histories challenges narratives that diminish the work of Black activists who saw education as a path to liberation and full citizenship.

Explore the timeline below to learn more about HBCUs established in the nineteenth century and these institutions’ connections with the Colored Conventions movement. Click the icon in the top left corner to expand the map legend.

CREDITS

Written by Rachel Nelson

Revised by Samantha de Vera

Timeline created by Samantha de Vera