The Black Colleges of Atlanta
()
About this ebook
Join Author Rodney T. Cohen as he reveals the history & beginnings of the Black Colleges of Atlanta and the distinguished alumni they shaped.
By 1865, although Atlanta and the Confederacy still lay wounded in the wake of the Union victory, black higher education began its thrust for recognition. Some of the first of the American colleges formed specifically for the education of black students were founded in Atlanta, Georgia. These schools continue, over a century later, to educate, train and inspire. Through an engaging collection of images and informative captions, their story begins to unfold. Atlanta University was the pioneer college for blacks in the state of Georgia. Founded in 1865, it was followed by Morehouse College in 1867, Clark University in 1869, and Spelman and Morris Brown Colleges in 1881. By 1929, Atlanta University discontinued undergraduate work and affiliated with Morehouse and Spelman in a plan known as the "Atlanta University System." A formal agreement of cooperation including all of the Atlanta colleges occurred in 1957, solidifying the common goal and principles each school was founded upon-to make literate the black youth of America. Today, the shared resources of each institution provide a unique and challenging experience for young African Americans seeking higher education. The schools boast a long and distinguished list of alumni and scholars, including W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Henry O. Tanner, and C. Eric Lincoln.
Rodney T. Cohen
Author Rodney T. Cohen is a graduate of Clark College with a masters degree from Western Kentucky University, where he currently serves as the director of development of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. In addition, he has worked and studied at Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, and Cambridge. A student of higher education, Cohen couples his knowledge of the colleges' history with vintage photographs in this unforgettable tribute to an academic stronghold.
Related to The Black Colleges of Atlanta
Related ebooks
Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Black Man's Journey from Sharecropper to College President: The Life and Work of William Johnson Trent, 1873-1963 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making Black Los Angeles: Class, Gender, and Community, 1850-1917 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchooling the Movement: The Activism of Southern Black Educators from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDouglas/Grand Boulevard: A Chicago Neighborhood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUpbuilding Black Durham: Gender, Class, and Black Community Development in the Jim Crow South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharecropping, Ghetto, Slum: A History of Impoverished Blacks in Twentieth-Century America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Chicago: A Black History of America's Heartland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gale Researcher Guide for: African Americans in Reconstruction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking Black History: The Color Line, Culture, and Race in the Age of Jim Crow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuilding a Movement to End the New Jim Crow: an organizing guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Man's Burden: The Horrors of Southern Lynchings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsForging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C.: The Father of Black History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory, Heritage and Timeless Service 1955-2013: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Zeta Omicron Omega Chapter Mid-Atlantic Region Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Negro Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Indian Slave Narratives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMartin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Brother's Keeper: African Canadians and the American Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5U.S. History 101: Historic Events, Key People, Important Locations, and More! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Black Colleges of Atlanta
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Black Colleges of Atlanta - Rodney T. Cohen
project.
INTRODUCTION
Education is the highest measure of a nation and a people’s progress and status in society. The rise of the black college in American history is probably one of the greatest marvels of the 20th century. Never before in the history of the world has a group of people met with such overwhelming challenges and opposition to obtain an education and, more specifically, a higher education. Never before have the odds been so insurmountable, but overcome. At the close of the Civil War, practically all of black America was illiterate; however, by the end of 1910, only 30 percent were illiterate (Miller and Gay, 1917). In this spirit to continue to progress and combat the citadel of racial hegemony, black America saw the rise of a group of schools, colleges, and universities dedicated to providing education to the once servile group.
The movement to provide higher education to black America began during and after the Civil War. At the dawn of secession in the mid-1850s, black colleges such as Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Wilberforce University in Ohio were established, thus beginning the black college movement in America (Thompson, 1973). The black colleges of America, by all intents, provided the only reliable opportunity for black youth to obtain a higher education. The aspirants of a black higher education were usually imbued with the desire to help in the movement of racial uplift. As a result, by the 1920s the rate of literacy had increased to nearly 80 percent (Thompson, 1973). Black colleges, with little or no cooperation from majority institutions, trained the hundreds of black teachers and scholars who were able to significantly reverse the rate of illiteracy in black America.
Approximately a decade after the founding of Lincoln and Wilberforce, the need to establish higher education in the Deep South was evident with the coming of Atlanta’s black colleges: Atlanta, Clark, Morris Brown, Spelman, and Morehouse. By 1865, although Atlanta and the Confederacy still lay wounded in the ashes of the Union’s destruction, black higher education began its thrust for recognition. The first of the Atlanta colleges to be founded for blacks was Atlanta University (AU) in 1865, followed by Morehouse College in 1867, Clark University in 1869, and Spelman and Morris Brown Colleges in 1881.
Atlanta University was the pioneer college for blacks in the state. It was incorporated in 1867, with the first normal school class graduating in 1873 and the first class of college rank graduating in 1876. During the early years of the university, emphasis was on the development of primary and secondary education, preparing students for advanced college and university work. In 1894, all pre-high school work was discontinued, and during the first two decades of the 20th century, all high school work was phased out. By the mid-1920s, the university boasted of faculty from such schools as Chicago, Oberlin, Boston, and Harvard (Klein, 1929). Because of its outstanding reputation and accreditation, many of Atlanta’s graduates were admitted to the top graduate schools of recognized universities, including Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and NYU. Atlanta University also gained recognition from the American Medical Association (AMA) as a Class A institution for the preparation of medical students (Klein,