50 Fun Facts About HBCU

What does the acronym HBCU stand for?

They were founded to serve African American students before the landmark 1964 legislation.

An HBCU must have been founded before which landmark 1964 law?

Most were founded during Reconstruction, after the Civil War.

Which is the oldest HBCU in the United States?

Founded as the Institute for Colored Youth in 1837 by Quaker Richard Humphreys.

In what year was Cheyney, the oldest HBCU, founded?

Its founder, Richard Humphreys, was a Quaker who left $10,000 to educate free people of colour.

Which 1890 law required segregated Southern states to fund a Black land-grant college?

Many public HBCUs were founded to satisfy it.

Roughly how many HBCUs operated in the United States in 2026?

In 2026 they made up about 3% of the nation's colleges.

Roughly what share of African American college graduates do HBCUs produce?

They also produce about 25% of African American STEM graduates.

Which HBCU did former Vice President Kamala Harris attend?

Howard is in Washington, D.C.'s Shaw neighbourhood.

In what year was the D.C. HBCU chartered by Congress, home to the Bison?

Howard is the only HBCU with an R1 'very high research activity' classification.

After the Flexner Report, which two HBCU medical schools survived when the others closed?

Five of the seven Black medical schools were forced to close.

Which HBCU is a private women's liberal arts school in Atlanta?

It was founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.

Whose relatives was the Atlanta women's seminary renamed after in 1884?

John D. Rockefeller paid off the school's debt after his wife's family, longtime abolitionists, supported it.

Which HBCU is a private men's liberal arts school in Atlanta?

Martin Luther King Jr. and Spike Lee both graduated from it.

Who is the most famous graduate of the Atlanta men's HBCU?

Filmmaker Spike Lee is also a Morehouse man.

Who founded Tuskegee and became its first principal in 1881?

He started classes in a rundown church before buying a former plantation.

In which state is Tuskegee University?

It was founded on July 4, 1881, as a normal school for Black teachers.

Which HBCU's marching band is nicknamed the Marching 100?

FAMU's teams are the Rattlers, and it is the only public HBCU in Florida.

What are Florida A&M's sports teams called?

They compete in NCAA Division I.

Which HBCU is recognised as the first degree-granting HBCU, founded as Ashmun Institute in 1854?

It was renamed in 1866 after Abraham Lincoln.

Ashmun Institute was renamed in 1866 after whom?

It had originally been named Ashmun Institute after reformer Jehudi Ashmun.

Which Virginia HBCU, founded in 1868, did Tuskegee's founder attend as a student?

It was led by former Union general Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

Who was the 1868 Virginia HBCU's first leader, a former Union general?

He shaped a famous pupil's philosophy of industrial education.

What collective nickname is given to the historically Black Greek-letter organizations?

They are overseen by the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

At which HBCU was the National Pan-Hellenic Council permanently formed in 1930?

It brings the Divine Nine organisations under one umbrella.

Which HBCU conference contests the Celebration Bowl against the MEAC champion?

The two historically Black Division I conferences are the SWAC and MEAC.

What are the two historically Black NCAA Division I athletic conferences?

Their champions have met in the Celebration Bowl since 2015.

The Bayou Classic pits Southern University against which school?

It is played the Saturday after Thanksgiving in New Orleans.

Where is the Bayou Classic usually played?

It moved to Houston only once, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Where does the SWAC have its headquarters?

It is considered the premier HBCU athletic conference.

Which Supreme Court justice went to Lincoln University and Howard Law?

He graduated from Lincoln University and Howard Law.

Which Hidden Figures mathematician attended West Virginia State, an HBCU?

She calculated trajectories for NASA's first crewed spaceflights.

Which HBCU did record-holding NFL receiver Jerry Rice attend?

Doug Williams, the first Black QB to win a Super Bowl, went to Grambling.

Which HBCU did Doug Williams, the first Black QB to win a Super Bowl, attend?

He starred under coach Eddie Robinson.

Which director of Do the Right Thing is an HBCU graduate?

He graduated from Morehouse College.

What role did the federal Freedmen's Bureau play in early HBCUs?

Northern missionary groups, especially the American Missionary Association, also helped found them.

Which was the first HBCU founded in the South, in 1865?

Now Clark Atlanta University, it was the first to award graduate degrees to African Americans.

Many HBCUs hired refugee professors in the 1930s who were fleeing what?

More than two-thirds of faculty hired at many HBCUs from 1933 to 1945 were fleeing the Nazis.

Which Quaker philanthropist's bequest founded the oldest HBCU?

He left $10,000 to educate free people of colour.

What does the related classification 'PBI' stand for?

A PBI must have at least 40% Black undergraduate enrolment but was not founded before 1964.

Which historic consortium groups several neighbouring Black colleges in one Georgia city?

It is the oldest and largest consortium of HBCUs.

Tuskegee's campus was designed by Robert Robinson Taylor, the first Black graduate of which university?

He worked with the first professionally trained Black landscape architect, David Williston.

Before 1890, segregation laws barred Black students from land-grant colleges in how many states?

That exclusion prompted the Second Morrill Act.

At the 1847 convention, which famous orator argued AGAINST separate Black colleges?

Alexander Crummell argued for them; the convention voted to support them.

Which Ohio HBCU, founded in 1856, was among the few established before the American Civil War?

Others predating the war include Cheyney (1837), Avery College (1849) and the Miner School for Colored Girls (1851).

Which HBCU, founded on December 1, 1865, was the second established in the South?

Atlanta University had been the first that same year, and Storer College also opened in 1865 at Harpers Ferry.

Storer College, an HBCU that operated from 1865 to 1955, stood in which West Virginia town?

Its former campus and buildings are now part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

In the 1870s, which HBCU did South Carolina designate as its African American land-grant college?

Mississippi chose Alcorn and Virginia chose Hampton, before the Second Morrill Act of 1890 forced every segregated state to fund one.

Which president's 1980 executive order created the White House Initiative on HBCUs?

George H. W. Bush followed in 1989 with Executive Order 12677, creating a presidential advisory board on HBCUs.

West Virginia State and Bluefield State are HBCUs whose student bodies have had what since the mid-1960s?

Many HBCUs have kept tuition affordable, and non-African American enrolment has risen across the sector.

In which year did Atlanta University and Clark College consolidate into Clark Atlanta University?

Atlanta University was the first HBCU in the South; Clark, founded in 1869, was the nation's first four-year liberal arts college for African American students.