There are more than 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States, including public and private institutions, two-year and four-year schools, medical schools, law schools, and community colleges. These institutions, commonly referred to as HBCUs, were founded in response to large-scale White opposition to Black education throughout the US. Many of these schools have become highly respected educational establishments that confer great prestige on their graduates, and nearly all have played crucial roles in the Civil Rights movement and the rise of a successful Black business class in the US.

In The History and Future of HBCUs, Professor Crystal R. Sanders and Professor Reginald Ellis take you back to the pre-Civil War origins of some of the earliest HBCUs and walk you through the complex history of these institutions. As you witness their growth - and the power struggles that often came with the fraught political and racial landscape of the US in the 19th and 20th centuries - you will meet some of the great minds they produced. Uncover the indelible mark they have left on American education, the fight for Black liberation, and the Civil Rights movement.

Along the way, you will examine the arguments that determined what would be taught and consider how funding for these institutions highlighted the very inequality they fought to dismantle. You will also get a closer look at the ways these schools created their own identities and traditions, including pre-segregation Black athletics, the birth of Black-led sororities and fraternities, and the Black college band movement. As you will see, HBCUs have deeply affected many facets of American history and culture - both within the realm of higher education and beyond it - and yet their fight to survive and thrive continues today.