FILE – With the Founders Library in the background, a young man reads on Howard University campus July 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) Today, America celebrates our newest federal holiday of Juneteenth — the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation’s full enforcement in Texas. June 19, 1865 marked the effective end of slavery throughout the defeated Confederacy.
On this day, we should also celebrate the success of the historically Black colleges and universities that transformed the lives of formerly enslaved African Americans and their descendants, including me.
As a graduate of two HBCUs in the 1980s — Morehouse College and the Howard University School of Law — I am a direct beneficiary of the schools that were created for Black people at a time when segregation barred nearly all of us from getting a higher education.
Importantly, HBCUs have not just benefitted their students and the Black community. They have also benefited our nation by taking advantage of the previously untapped talents of African Americans, enabling us to enter the middle class and move even higher. We have helped make America successful, prosperous, and true to its ideals of freedom, justice and equality.
As the enduring motto of the United Negro College Fund states, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Yet before the end of the Civil War, America wasted the brainpower of enslaved Black people by denying them an education.
I will always owe a debt to the two HBCUs that gave me an excellent education. They also gave me the leadership skills and self-confidence I required for a successful career as a senior partner in a major law firm, and for my efforts in politics and elsewhere to build a better future for all Americans.
I can only imagine the horrors experienced by enslaved people like my ancestors, who — on top of all the other horrific abuses they were forced to endure — were denied the chance for any education.
Before the end of the Civil War, it was a crime in most southern states to teach enslaved people to read. For example, the Alabama Slave Code set the penalty for teaching literacy to an enslaved or even a free Black person at up to $500 — the equivalent of nearly $20,000 today.
Some still learned to read anyway in slavery. They were largely self-taught, with help from sympathetic whites and literate African Americans. They could be punished with severe beatings, amputations and even death if their supposed crime of literacy was discovered.
Slaveholders wanted to shackle the minds of the enslaved in addition to their bodies, fearing that literate slaves would be more difficult to control and would forge travel passes, enabling them to escape.
Even after Emancipation, most Black children able to get any education went to segregated and underfunded schools, and few advanced beyond fourth grade.
Only 30 Black students graduated from predominantly white U.S. colleges and universities between 1828 and 1880, with the number growing to less than 700 by 1910.
The first HBCU was Cheney University, which opened in 1837 in Pennsylvania. The number of such schools grew after the Civil War. The U.S. Education Department now recognizes 100 established before 1964 as HBCUs — 51 public and 49 private — and reports that 24 percent of students now enrolled are not Black.
I chose to go to Morehouse — the all-male HBCU from which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. graduated in 1948 — on my mother’s advice. She knew of the college’s long record of success as the only place on Earth training more than 2,500 Black men annually for leadership, producing outstanding graduates who went on to make America a better place. She wanted me to join their ranks.
At both Morehouse and Howard, I was surrounded by high-achieving fellow students who looked and sounded like me and had similar backgrounds. I was no longer called the n-word, as sometimes happened at my overwhelmingly white high school.
I made lifelong friends with many classmates who practiced excellence and went on to successful careers as change-makers in public service and as business leaders. They include New York state Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Willie Wood, president and co-founder of the private equity firm ICV Partners.
And at both HBCUs, I received a rigorous education from outstanding professors, most of them Black, who were deeply invested in the success of their students. My experience at these two great schools, along with my parents, made me the man I am today.
HBCUs remain a vital part of America’s higher education system today. Despite great progress African Americans have made since Emancipation, we still lag behind white Americans in educational attainment. While 33 percent of white Americans 25 and older hold at least a bachelor’s degree, only 19 percent of Black Americans do.
Much must be done to narrow this higher education gap. Providing more federal, state and philanthropic funding to HBCUs would be an important step, because HBCUs produce nearly 20 percent of Black college graduates in the U.S.
I recently attended graduation ceremonies for the Morehouse Class of 2026 and celebrated the graduation of my stepson, whom I call my “bonus son.” I am proud to say he followed in my footsteps to become a Morehouse man. I hope that when he has children of his own, HBCUs remain an educational option open for them as well.
A. Scott Bolden is an attorney, NewsNation contributor, former chair of the Washington, D.C. Democratic Party and a former New York state prosecutor.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Letitia James Martin Luther King Jr. Morehouse College U.S. Education Department United Negro College FundCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comments: Link copiedMore Opinions - Education News
See All
Opinions - Education For Juneteenth and America’s 250th, recognize tragedies and triumphs by Donna Brazile, opinion contributor 2 hours ago Opinions - Education / 2 hours ago 
