Find Five and tell them that Republicans fostered the creation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
 

Prior to the Civil War, higher education for African American students was virtually nonexistent. Those who did receive higher education did so in informal settings under adverse conditions or were self-taught. “Some schools for elementary and secondary training existed, such as the Institute for Colored Youth, a school started in the early 1830s by a group of Philadelphia Quakers. A college education was also available to a limited number of students at schools like Oberlin College in Ohio and Berea College in Kentucky.” The first two Black Colleges were Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, founded in 1837, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, founded in 1856.

In 1862 Senator Justin Morrill (Republican, VT.) spear-headed a movement to improve the state of public higher education throughout the United States, putting an emphasis on the need for institutions to train Americans in the applied sciences, agriculture, and engineering. “The Morrill Land-Grant Act gave federal lands to the states for the purpose of opening colleges and universities to educate farmers, scientists, and teachers. Few were open or inviting to blacks, particularly in the South. Only Alcorn State University in Mississippi was created explicitly as a black land-grant college. Ten years after the Morrill Act of 1862, the Freedman’s Bureau (again sponsored by Republicans) was created to provide support to a small number of HBCUs.”

“The solution came with the second Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1890, which specified that states using federal land-grant funds must either make their schools open to both blacks and whites or allocate money for segregated black colleges to serve as an alternative to white schools. Sixteen exclusively black institutions received 1890 land-grant funds.” These legislative acts (promoted by Republicans) were instrumental in the growth of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. These acts became invaluable when the 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessey v. Ferguson, also known as the “Separate but Equal” decision virtually kept blacks out of white institutions of higher learning.
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