Higher Education for African Americans Before the Civil Rights Era, 1900-1964

This volume examines the evolution of higher education opportunities for African Americans in the early and mid-twentieth century. It contributes to understanding how African Americans overcame great odds to obtain advanced education in their own institutions, how they asserted themselves to gain control over those institutions, and how they persisted despite discrimination and intimidation in both northern and southern universities.Following an introduction by the editors are contributions by Richard M. Breaux, Louis Ray, Lauren Kientz Anderson, Timothy Reese Cain, Linda M. Perkins, and Michael Fultz.Contributors consider the expansion and elevation of African American higher education. Such progress was made against heavy odds—the "separate but equal" policies of the segregated South, less overt but pervasive racist attitudes in the North, and legal obstacles to obtaining equal rights.

Introduction: Higher Education for African-Americans before the Civil Rights Era, 1900–1964, City Normal Schools and Municipal Colleges in the Upward Expansion of Higher Education for African Americans, Nooses, Sheets, and Blackface: White Racial Anxiety and Black Student Presence at Six Midwest, Flagship Universities, 1882–1937, A Nauseating Sentiment, a Magical Device, or a Real Insight? Interracialism at Fisk University in 1930, “Only Organized Effort Will Find the Way Out!”: Faculty Unionization at Howard University, 1918–1950, Competing Visions of Higher Education: The College of Liberal Arts Faculty and the Administration of Howard University, 1939–1960, The First Black Talent Identification Program: The National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students, 1947–1968, List of Contributors

Craig LaMay