HBCUs: 'Roots that Run Deep'

Booker T. Washington, 1856 - 1915, Tuskegee Institute, founded 1881. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or otherwise known as HBCUs, are institutions of higher learning originally established for the education of Black Americans within the United States before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act, which became law on July 2, 1964, outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, and national origin. It prohibited unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. Before the existence of such a federally protected law, Black Americans and many people of color faced discrimination, denial, and refusal to be educated from certain institutions. Although many HBCUs were founded in the years following the American Civil War in the American South, the roots of these efforts to educate Black Americans first began in the northern abolitionist schools during the years of slavery. The Abolitionist movement, which began in the American North in the 1830s, sought the total emancipation of enslaved people. During this period, the only options to receive an education for Free Black Americans or escaped enslaved people were in the North. HBCUs established before the American Civil War include  Cheyney University  of Pennsylvania (1837),  Lincoln University  (1854), and  Wilberforce University  (1856). Many if not most enslaved people in the American South were completely denied any form of education and faced severe punishments or death for the pursuit of educational learning outside of their laborious duties.

Following the end of the American Civil War in 1865 and throughout Reconstruction, recently emancipated Black Americans were now beginning to have the option to obtain a formal education. These pursuits primarily began in the form of small rural classrooms focusing on primary and secondary education established by Christian denominations, most notably the Methodists and Baptists. Three months after the end of the Civil War, Atlanta University, which became  Clark Atlanta University , was established in Atlanta, Georgia on September 19, 1865. Clark Atlanta University is noted as being the first HBCU in the Southern United States. Other HBCUs established during 1865 include  Shaw University  in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 1, 1865, and  Storer College  in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Although the option to learn and be educated was becoming a reality for Black Americans, many still faced violence, oppression, intimidation, and targeting from the rise of Jim Crowism and white supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, in the South. For many, these schools were the very beacons that stood in contrast to the limited options and opportunities being offered to Black Americans. They represented an alternate path, one of elevation, as opposed to the continued option of hard laborious work through paid servitude or agricultural sharecropping practices.

As HBCUs continued to be established and branch out from their origins, they created a network that spanned many states in the American South. In Texas, this expansion was no different. Prior to the establishment of Tillotson College and Samuel Huston College, there pre-dates another HBCU, the first, in fact, in Texas, right here in Austin.  Paul Quinn College  is the first HBCU to open in Texas. It was originally founded in Austin, TX on April 4, 1872, and was associated with the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. The college was created with the purpose of educating formally enslaved people and their children. In 1877 however, the school relocated north to Waco, TX. Its final relocation in 1990 placed the college in Dallas, TX. Paul Quinn College remains the only HBCU in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It is important to note that during The Great Depression, Paul Quinn College was greatly affected. In an effort to assist the college, Prairie View (the only public Black College at the time) held classes on the campus.

The second oldest HBCU established in Texas is  Wiley College  of Marshall, TX which was established in 1873 by the  Freedmen's Aid Society  of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Wiley College was named in honor of Bishop Isaac William Wiley, who was a minister, medical missionary, and educator. Facing the turbulent times for Black Americans in America, especially in the south, and furthermore, in East Texas, Wiley College opened its doors with the mission to succeed despite the climate of racism and ever-increasing Jim Crow laws. Rather than moving the campus further away, the founders moved closer to the city of Marshall on a stretch of 55 acres, where the university still stands today.

Around the same time that Tillotson and Samuel Huston College were established, another HBCU was in the works.  Prairie View A&M University  was first established in 1876 and was the first state-supported college for Black Americans in Texas. The Texas Constitution of 1876 established that an “Agricultural and Mechanical College” would be created for children of color with “impartial provisions provided.” So on August 14, 1876, Prairie View was first established as the “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth.” The first enrollments for the school were eight young African American men on March 11, 1878. The school’s name would be changed from “Alta Vista” to “Prairie View Normal School” during the sixteenth Texas Legislature on April 19, 1879. Over the years, the school would continue to go through various name changes including, “Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College” in 1899, “Prairie View University” in 1945, “Prairie View Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas” in 1947, and finally its current name of “Prairie View A&M University” during the Sixty-third Legislature in 1973.

Born 1849, Died 1907. Buried in Section 4A, Oakwood Cemetery, Austin, Texas.

The creation and existence of Prairie View A&M University can be linked to Oakwood Resident William H. Holland. As one of the Black Legislators of the 15th Texas Legislature in 1876, he was the representative that sponsored the bill that established the 'Prairie View Normal College.' Holland was born to an enslaved mother, Matilda, in Marshall, Texas. His father, Capt. Bird Holland was white. His father bought William's and his brothers' freedom and sent them to Ohio to be educated in the late 1850s.

During the US Civil War, Capt. Bird Holland was a Major within the Texas Infantry for the Confederate Army, while his son William, served in the Union Army's 'Sixteenth US Colored Troops.' His other son Milton (William's brother), served in the '5th US Colored Troops' and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the battle of New Market Heights in 1864.

After the war, William Holland would attend Oberlin College before returning to Texas to teach in multiple counties including several schools in Austin. At the "Colored Men's Convention" in Brenham, Texas in 1873, Holland was on the committee that discussed support for friendly race relations, a federal civil rights act, open political meetings, black landholding, internal improvements, immigration to the United States, President U. S. Grant, and the Republican party, as well as criticism for the violence faced by Black Americans and efforts to repudiate state debts.

Following the Legislature of 1876, he would later submit the request for the establishment of a school for the deaf, mute, and blind in Texas. The school would become the "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute for Colored Youth," which was established on April 5, 1887. It would become part of the  Texas School for the Deaf  in 1965. Holland himself was appointed as the first superintendent by Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross, making him the first black man in the United States to head a public institution. His wife, Eliza, also joined the staff in 1890 as an instructor. Holland remained for ten years before being succeeded by S. J. Jenkins, who served until his death in 1904. Holland resumed the position and served until his death in 1907.

William H. Holland was laid to rest in Oakwood Cemetery and is buried next to his mother, Matilda Holland, who passed in 1905. His brother Milton, is buried at  Arlington National Cemetery . While William and his mother are buried in what was originally the segregated section of Oakwood Cemetery, his father Capt. Bird Holland and his second wife, also named Matilda, are buried in the Old Grounds of the cemetery in  Section 1, Lot 13 .

Additional Links:

 Historical Biographies of Austin Cemeteries  (austintexas.gov)

 Texas State Historical Association Biography 

 Find A Grave Memorial page 

 Wikipedia Page 

Born January 17, 1837, Died October 29, 1921. Buried in Section 2, Lot 397, Oakwood Cemetery, Austin, Texas.

 Helen Marr (Swearingen) Kirby , the first dean of women at the University of Texas, was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 17, 1837, the third child of Dr. Richard J. and Margaret M. (Conner) Swearingen. The family later moved to Mississippi, and in 1848 settled in Chappell (now Chapel) Hill, Texas, where Dr. Swearingen became a founder of Soule University. Helen was educated at home by her mother until 1854, when she entered Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia; she received a B.A. in 1855 and an honorary M.A. ten years later. On April 18, 1858, at Chappell Hill, she married  Jared E. Kirby , a wealthy planter, and subsequently settled on a large estate, Alta Vista, near Hempstead. The couple had three sons. Mrs. Kirby's life was disrupted by the Civil War during which she lost her husband, one of her sons, and the family fortune. Her husband, a Confederate Colonel in 1865, was shot in a personal dispute by another Confederate officer, Captain Steel. After the war and the death of her husband, she attempted to improve her finances by opening a boarding school for young ladies at Alta Vista, which operated from 1867 to 1875. She later sold the property to the State of Texas. It was in this residence that  Prairie View A&M University, the second oldest state-supported school, and the first historic Black college in Texas, was opened on March 11, 1878 . She and her sons then moved to Austin, where she taught for a year at the Stacy family's private school. In 1876, she re-established Alta Vista Institute in her home in Austin.

Additional Links:

 Helen Marr Kirby Story Map  (Oakwood Chapel)

 Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery Historical Marker 

 Find A Grave Memorial page 

"HBCUs are a source of accomplishment and great pride for the African American community as well as the entire nation. HBCUs offer all students, regardless of race, an opportunity to develop their skills and talents. These institutions train young people who go on to serve domestically and internationally in the professions as entrepreneurs and in the public and private sectors."

- United States Department of Education

As of 2021, there are currently more than 100 accredited Historically Black Colleges and Universities still in operation. Such colleges and universities include Spelman College, Howard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Tuskegee University, Hampton University, Morehouse College, Claflin University, Fisk University, Clark Atlanta University, and Dillard University. Many have long endured and survived throughout many decades. They stand as testaments to the perseverance and will of those who carried their missions and legacies onward.

 National Center for Education Statistics: Accredited HBCU Listings 

HBCUs:

 HBCU Timeline: 1837 - 1870 

 "The Untold History of HBCUs"  Podcast (Kera Think)

 "Texas Historically Black Colleges & Universities"  Map (Kera Learn)

 "Black Colleges"  (Texas State Historical Association)

Wiley College:

 Texas State Historical Association Bio 

 The History of Wiley College 

 Timeline 

 Wiley College  (Uncovering St. John's)

Prairie View A&M University:

 University Website  

 Prairie View  (Uncovering St. John's)