Chapter 26: Misrepresented and Misunderstood: Contemporary Dilemmas Facing HBCUs

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have always surpassed the expectations of those who narrowly defined their mission. Created to provide a separate educational venue for African Americans, HBCUs managed to create intellectual havens for those wishing to learn the canons of popular education, provide needed remediation, and implement open admissions policies for students of all races. While esteeming the African American experience students were taught the transformative power of knowledge and its function in facilitating social change. Yet despite their significant contributions, judicial and legislative edicts that supported the creation of public HBCUs are increasingly reinterpreted to question the value, purpose, and future of these same institutions. However, as Benjamin Mays (1978) and W.E.B. Du Bois (1993) concur, HBCUs have never been considered, at least in the African American community, transient or temporary, but rather an integral thread in the American higher education tapestry.