Black University Comparison Paper: Howard University and Fisk University

Comparison Paper:

Howard University and Fisk University

There are over one hundred Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States. These are institutions of higher education that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community. Two of those colleges include the prestigious Howard University and Fisk University. Both these colleges helped and still help African Americans. Both are very good schools and have several similarities as well as several differences.

Howard University was founded in 1867 by white founders in Washington D.C. It was not initially founded to be an African American school. It was founded to further the education of youth in the liberal arts and sciences in Washington D.C. The founders never envisioned a segregated college for blacks. In early years, it had a few white men and women, Chinese, Native Americans, and Native Africans enrolled. Despite initial funding problems, Howard was one of the only universities established after the Civil War that was able to gather enough resources to provide real education to African Americans, above and beyond a high school-esque curriculum. In the beginning the board of trustees was predominantly white. However, Frederick Douglass and John Mercer Langston were influential black board members. Neither supported Howard being a segregated institution but due to the heavily segregated city of D.C there was not much of a chance of getting a substantial white student population. Langston was technically speaking the first black president of Howard University, when he acted as President for three months in 1875 while President Howard was away. When Howard stepped down as President the board voted on who would take his place. Both Langston and Douglass were nominated. The heavily white board elected a white president, George Whipple but he stepped out of the candidates when Douglass and Langston asserted to the public that white Congregationalists were trying to...