Standards (1890-1920)
African-American Higher Education
While the student body expanded throughout higher education generally, quotas and segregation limited the opportunities for post-secondary education for African-Americans. Limited opportunities existed legally after 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned the segregation of educational institutions in the Plessey vs. Ferguson case.
While a few higher education institutions, such as Oberlin College, admitted African-Americans alongside whites, black students were exceptions in most colleges and universities. Most African-Americans who did attend a post-secondary educational institution went to separate black colleges and universities.
Separate institutions, like Tuskegee Institute, often did not have the same academic standards as other colleges and universities. According to a 1917 survey of African-American higher education, only one of 16 black land-grant schools in the former slave states taught students at the collegiate level.
Compounding the problem of separate, limited, and unequal higher education for African-Americans was the schism that emerged over the nature of secondary and higher education for African-Americans. This schism is captured by the experience of two men, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.
Booker T. Washington was a proponent of industrial education for blacks. Industrial education emphasized labor and trades for economic self-sufficiency. With the assistance of northern philanthropists, Washington promoted industrial education among African-Americans. A graduate of Hampton Institute, Washington eventually presided over the industrial education offered at Tuskegee.
W.E.B. DuBois was an advocate for the creation of a college-educated black leadership. DuBois termed this educated black elite the "Talented Tenth." Educated at Harvard University, DuBois believed that an academically-oriented collegiate education for blacks would help African-Americans in fighting for civil, legal, political, and social rights.
