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The Education Of African Americans Essay

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Historically black colleges and universities, otherwise known as HBCUs, have played an integral role in advancing the education of underprivileged black teenagers since their inception after the American Civil War. They have had students extremely well known in their fields today, such as billionaire entertainer Oprah Winfrey, the first African American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though their graduation rates tend to be around 1 in 3, they have produced a majority of successful African American professionals. For the continued advancement of African Americans, HBCUs are necessary for offering educational opportunities that their students had been historically denied and presently out of financial reach, while promoting strong family values and equality that may be lacking at traditional schools and displaying positive African American role models in their alumni and staff.
HBCUs can at earliest be dated back to before the Civil War, when the majority of colleges wouldn’t admit African American students on the premise of their race alone These schools were created specifically for the education of African Americans due to the fact that while some states had educational facilities open to all in the North and West, most of the South had segregated systems that forbade the admittance of African Americans. In 1890, the Agricultural College Act was passed, requiring segregated states to create a separate land grant

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