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 …show more content…
During his thirty-four year tenure, all of Howard’s schools became fully accredited and Howard became the “best-known and the most successful and respected predominantly black university in the world” (Roe 1-2). Johnson constructed new buildings and upgraded libraries and other academic facilities. Johnson upped the number of African Americans on the facility and actively recruited black scholars. Johnson also pursued Congress to make amendments allowing for an annual federal appropriation for the university. Charles Houston revamped the School of Law into an accredited program and it later became the center of the NAACP’s struggle to reverse Plessey v. Ferguson (1896). Howard trained lawyers in 1954 helped with Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe to make the Supreme Court decision that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional, a landmark