- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(classical music) - [Narrator] Historically Black colleges and Universities, or HBCUs for short.

(classical music) Institutions built on tradition, but born out of necessity - These schools were very critical because there were no schools for African-Americans.

- [Narrator] Nationwide, there's more than 100 HBCUs with nearly 20% of them calling North or South Carolina home.

Coming up, we'll explore the genesis of historically Black colleges and universities.

We'll visit three HBCUs in the Charlotte region and speak with alumni and staff to learn the unique history of each.

That more on "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) (flowing piano music) Around the world, many call the United States of America the land of opportunity, but imagine your life without an education.

And imagine a time when you were legally denied an education based simply on the color of your skin, denied opportunity.

- For African Americans in this country, education has been one of the main inroads that they have been able to overcome and navigate racial discrimination.

It hasn't totally been a road free of hardship.

- Because going back to slavery times, African-Americans, slave and free were forbidden from learning to read and write back in the latter years of slavery.

- [Narrator] But after the Civil War and emancipation of nearly 4 million people from the bonds of slavery, education offered hope.

- When slavery ended, one of the very first things that folks did was rush towards schooling.

- [Narrator] However, in the absence of slavery, many states quickly instituted segregation laws, which continued the oppression of African-Americans, denying them equal access to schools.

- Because it was not legal for African-Americans to go to the white schools that they weren't accepted, it was necessary for institutions like Clinton to be established, to be able to create that level of equity among the group.

If the love isn't being shared, create it yourself.

- [Narrator] So across the American South, African American communities started establishing their own schools, and eventually colleges and universities, but Dr. Julia Moore, an author and associate professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte says there was another possible outcome.

- I think the thing to remember is that historically Black colleges are birthed out of segregation, in the church first, and then of course, in regular societal churches as well.

So, had Christians, north and south, fully embraced the claims of the gospel and the Constitution, there probably wouldn't be historically Black colleges because you would have had predominantly white institutions open their doors to newly freed slaves back in the day and have an integrated, very vibrant community of learning.

That didn't happen.

So out of necessity and out of struggle, historically Black colleges were developed.

(dramatic piano music) - [Narrator] In the Charlotte region, while the churches were segregated, Biddle Institute, later Johnson C Smith University, was the work of both Black and white Presbyterian churches working together.

- Presbyterian churches are unique in that they have a high emphasis on education.

- Presbyterian Church, very important in this part of the south, Black and white, and the Presbyterian church, very much people of the book.

To be a Presbyterian minister, the belief is that you really need to be a scholar of the Bible.

Well, African-Americans were now free.

There probably were going to be Black ministers.

You need to teach them literacy skills so that they can become people of the book.

- Charlotte is unique because Charlotte has the highest number of African American Presbyterians prior to the Civil War in the nation.

And so those historically Black colleges that were birthed here in North Carolina, especially the city of Charlotte, are actually birthed out of collaborations between white and Black Presbyterian churches, and Biddle, which is now Johnson C Smith, is one of those main historically Black colleges that came out of that collaboration.

- Other HBCUs, such as Clinton College in Rock Hill and Livingstone College in Salisbury were established by African-American leaders within the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

At first, many of the schools that would eventually grow into HBCUs only offered a basic education.

- [Tom] The historically Black colleges and universities started out teaching basic literacy skills and then added grades until they became real colleges, universities.

- To be able to have some place to learn, to be educated was very important, important for that generation to lay a foundation for the future generation.

- [Narrator] And to lay that foundation, schools mainly taught preachers and teachers, the very people needed to lay the building blocks for economic mobility in the African-American community.

- They trained up people who had liberal arts educations, who were ready to go off and become doctors, lawyers, business leaders.

Basically, this is an important part of training southern leadership.

Without the historically Black colleges and universities, we would have been a much less well-educated, a much poorer region, Black and white.

- That's the power of HBCUs is it creates an opportunity for, you know, education and giving the power to, you know, now Black men and women, to be able to carry themselves throughout the rest of the world.

- [Narrator] HBCUs not only provided a path for a better life economically, they also served as incubators for leaders in the civil rights movement.

- African-Americans in Charlotte and all over the place were, you know, denied equal education, equal access to food, grocery stores, healthcare, I mean, urban renewal took their houses and took their communities, took their schools away.

And there was very little refuge they could find when they were just being pushed to the bottom.

And historically Black colleges were there to help them rise up and were there for them.

- Particularly in North Carolina, where I think the key to the sit-in movement and to the wider civil rights movement, the sit-in start in a regional way at A&T University, a historically Black college in Greensboro.

And then within days, they spread to the other historically Black colleges, partly through those fraternity and sorority connections.

But also because there you had students who were being trained to think for themselves, to blaze new trails.

Here at Johnson C Smith University, Charles Jones, who was a theology graduate student, called folks together just a couple of days after the Greensboro sit-ins.

Didn't have any idea if people are going to show up.

200 students showed up and they talked about marching downtown to sit at those lunch counters.

The next morning folks in their Sunday best marched 200 strong down from Johnson C Smith, sat down at every lunch counter in the center city and began a six month effort that desegregated much of Charlotte.

And that story is told again and again, that the historically Black colleges were the nexus for the youth part of the civil rights movement.

- A lot of the changes that have taken place in Salisbury was a result of a number of our students being involved in, you know, changing how the people of our community can have access to movie theaters and to lunch counters, and that whole thing that you know very well happened in the civil rights movement.

So, our students played a key role in that as well.

- [Narrator] High upon a hill in west Charlotte stands a symbol of opportunity.

It's Biddle Hall, built in 1883.

- When you come into one of the original buildings built by the sweat and tears of a JCSU student, it does, it should bring chills.

When you look at Biddle Hall from outside of the campus, it always says it sits on the highest point in Charlotte, North Carolina.

So it's very historic and it's very revealing and a testimony of the foundation that this institution continues to build.

- [Narrator] It's the focal point of Johnson C Smith University, a school initially built on faith.

- What you see here, Johnson C Smith University began with a Freedmen's Bureau effort in about 1867 in partnership with the Presbyterian Church.

- Charlotte is really unique because you have the sort of triangular cooperation between northern whites, empathetic southern whites, and then newly free Blacks.

And they all sort of pull their resources together.

And they're thinking together in order to create educational institutions.

And those really help create what I call spears of empowerment, resistance, and even self agency for African-Americans.

So we just can't say that, well, the Black people got together and they didn't have any help.

You had really a collaboration.

And I think the key part of that collaboration is faith.

- Stephen Mattoon, the first president of this university, was a, I can't remember if it was Yale or Princeton, but an Ivy League educated guy.

And what he wanted to do was to come up with a Black Ivy League school.

And that's what his vision was for Johnson C Smith University.

So there was Latin, I mean, English, mathematics, science, things like that.

But the two main things JCSU was known for, well, we were Biddle University, first of all.

So it wasn't fair to call it JCSU yet, but we were Biddle University, that they were mostly for the divinity and education field.

So, preachers and teachers was what they were educating here at first.

That was the two main focuses.

- [Narrator] But, according to JCSU archivist, Brandon Lunsford, while the efforts of early leadership were well-meaning, paternalism played a major factor.

- So, it wasn't quite as altruistic as it seemed to be at the time.

They were kind of trying to shape these men to be, supposed to be, to fit more into white society, was kind of the underlying message through a lot of it, unfortunately.

- [Narrator] A change of leadership and direction was needed.

- So in 1895, Daniel Sanders became the first Black president of Biddle University.

I think that's when it really changed, because the church had decided that it was time for Black leadership.

So it was their decision to propose a Black president, and the white faculty members did not like that.

They quit in protest except for one.

So, like I said, there was a big faction of folks who did not want African-Americans to take control of their own education.

So, I think the big thing was when there are Black presidents, and he hired Black faculty members.

So now as you would, the educated African-Americans teaching African-Americans to be educated.

And I think that was when this thing really shifted from paternalistic to being really important to the community.

- [Narrator] On Charlotte's west side, Biddle University was renamed Johnson C Smith University in the early 1920s.

The school played a significant role in the surrounding community.

- It was the only place in Charlotte that you could be around other progressive, middle class, African-Americans like yourself.

That, I mean, they were all neighbors.

They knew each other, they all, their kids knew each other.

So it just started this whole cycle of positivity.

This was the center of, you know, the Black intellectual elite in Charlotte.

So, the Black middle class started, you know, moving around the university and starting neighborhoods here, and the faculty members would live here.

And then, yeah, doctors, lawyers, dentists, political figures, ministers.

They all started forming neighborhoods right here, like McCrorey Heights and Washington Heights, Biddleville, and Johnson C Smith was the flagship institution of all of that.

- [Narrator] JCSU's director of library services, Monika Rhue, is not only an employee of the university but also a graduate.

- A family friend actually attended Johnson C Smith University.

And anytime you find anybody who attend any HBCU, they always to encourage you to go to the HBCU they attended.

And so from conversations with him, I applied to Johnson C Smith University.

- [Narrator] She was part of her family's first generation to attend college.

- It meant an opportunity.

It meant changing the directions of our family.

I'm very passionate about Johnson C Smith University.

I'm very passionate about historical Black colleges.

I know the legacy.

I know the tradition.

I know what they have given to so many young men and women, the opportunity to have a higher education and what that meant to make a difference not only in their lives, but the lives of their families and the lives of their community is so important.

(classical piano music) - [Narrator] Livingstone College has been Salisbury home since 1881, but the school originally formed down the road in Concord two years prior in 1879.

Unlike Johnson C Smith, which was founded collaboratively between Black and white Presbyterian churches, Livingstone's roots are deep in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and started as the Zion Wesley Institute.

- They changed the name from Zion Wesley Institute to Livingstone College in honor of David Livingstone, the missionary to Africa, who was a philanthropist and explorer in Africa.

He was well loved there.

And of course, the church that is our founding denomination is the AME Zion Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

They have a great footprint in Africa, and a number of their churches are established there.

So they adopted that name in honor of him.

- [Narrator] Initial funding for the school was a real challenge.

- And even though it was church funded and church related, folks were just coming out of enslavement, and didn't have a lot of money.

So they had to do all that they could to raise money.

And I understand in the initial year, the first year it was founded, the school was only able to raise a couple of dollars.

That doesn't sound like much, but it was seed money for what became the college as you see it today.

- [Narrator] And today, the college sits on about 40 acres of land with more than 20 buildings.

The school's library was founded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

The historic building recently received federal funding for renovation work.

Across the street stands the home of founding president, Joseph Charles Price.

Back on campus, the administration building once housed the seminary of the AME Zion Church.

Like many HBCUs, Livingstone College trained preachers.

Then, there's 1887 Ballard Hall.

- Ballard Hall was founded and funded by Stephen Ballard, who was an industrialist in the United States.

And he gave money to the college, as well as the building next to it.

There, one of the neat things about Livingstone is that, you know, in the early days it wasn't just a classical education that students got.

They also got a practical education.

So, a number of the students learned how to make bricks.

And so that building and the building next door to it were built by bricks the students actually, you know, put together.

- [Narrator] But it's not the buildings that define an institution.

It's, of course, the people.

One famous graduate was James E.K.

Aggrey.

- My grandfather was James E.K.

Aggrey.

He was from Ghana, and he came to Livingstone as a student.

And after he graduated, they asked him to stay and teach Latin.

After teaching Latin for a period of time, he became the financial secretary, and he also was responsible for bringing other Africans from Ghana.

- [Narrator] Raemi Evens still lives in the house her grandparents built across from the college.

While not a graduate herself, Livingstone runs deep in her family.

- My grandfather was here.

Then my grandmother taught here, too.

And then my father came from New London, Connecticut to go to Livingstone.

And he became a teacher and a coach, but he also received the athletic Sports Hall of Fame Award.

All right, then my mother taught here, and she taught English.

She was an English professor.

She was in charge of International Day.

She was a representative to the trustee board, and she also was responsible for other kids or other students coming to Livingstone.

Because at one time she taught at the high school.

- [Narrator] While Livingstone is a historically Black college, Dr. State Alexander, who serves as the executive assistant to the president of the school, says the college mission is one of diversity and preparing its students for the world - Giving them the ABCs and one, two, threes is teaching them how to be good people.

Teaching how to, as the president says, take their rightful place in the global society, because that's what they need to understand.

It's not just that you're graduating from here, but you're graduating into a world where the economy and the world is much smaller.

It's faster technologically.

And so the global imprint is what we want our students to have.

- [Narrator] Now you might not expect it, but the campus of Livingstone is the site of a bit of college football controversy.

- This is the place where the first Black college game in the nation was played, Johnson C Smith University and Livingstone College.

It was called Biddle Institute at the time.

But we played the first Black college game in the nation in 1892.

It was a snowy day in December.

And there was a lot of controversy about that game.

It was eventually that Johnson C Smith won the game, but it was so snowy that when Livingstone made a touchdown to win the game, they said that he didn't cross the line.

So, that controversy is still exists, and that rivalry is still as hot as ever between our two schools.

- You know, we always said we won.

There's always controversy, but you know, we still won.

- [Narrator] Obviously JCSU alumni, Monika Rhue, might be a bit biased, but she says at the time of the game, what it meant to the African-American community around both schools was what mattered most.

- When you hear the stories and read the stories about how everybody was so excited, you know, people, you know, in they wagons and stuff, going to the game, and, you know, cheering for their team.

So, it was a very historic moment in the history of HBCUs.

And to think that Johnson C Smith University and Livingstone right here in North Carolina was a part of that is really phenomenal.

(classical piano music) - [Narrator] Across the state line from Charlotte, Rock Hill, South Carolina is home to another HBCU.

- We are at Clinton College.

Forget about what you've heard, but Clinton is the most magical place on earth.

This is where dreams are made.

This is where dreams actually come true.

Started in 1894 to serve the underserved, and that's what we're still doing today.

- [Narrator] The school is named after one of its three founders, Bishop Isom Clinton.

- Before he was Bishop Clinton, he was, he was Isom, you know and he was enslaved.

He was born to an enslaved mother, and to go from being enslaved to being, to holding one of the highest positions in the African-American church is a phenomenal thing.

And that came through education.

- [Narrator] Clinton learned to read and write while enslaved.

He learned the value of an education and what it could mean to African-Americans.

- So it was a charge that was led by Bishop Clinton, and Bishop Clinton is from the area, from the Tri County Area, from Lancaster.

And he had a charge to be able to create an institution to educate the children of those newly freed slaves, enslaved people.

Bishop Clinton came to the other two founders, Elder Crockett and Reverend Robinson, and charged them with creating the fund, getting, generating the funds to be able to build what we now have today, which is Clinton College.

The early students were educated to, it was like a high school, and then educated those students to be able to go back into their communities and educate people on how to read.

So, they did become teachers.

They did continue to become preachers, and 126 years later, we have an early childhood education program.

We have a religious studies program here at Clinton College for the next generation to continue that model.

- [Narrator] Dontavious Williams serves as Clinton College's alumni relations coordinator, but this HBCU is near and dear to his heart.

- We're big enough to, you know, be spread out, but we're small enough to be a family, and everybody can touch everybody.

We all know one another.

And that's another powerful thing about the HBCU.

Everyone is being held accountable.

As a graduate, I'm a proud alumnus of Clinton College.

I found out so much about myself as a Black man attending school at Clinton College.

And I believe that that was part of the mission of these three men when they were creating this school to help us find ourselves.

So that in, within ourselves, so that we could find ourselves in society in general.

The education that I received here truly helped me find who I am, and it empowered me to be able to compete and find my place in society as a whole.

- [Narrator] Many historically Black colleges and universities have been around for more than a century.

But after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and school desegregation, African-Americans now have the opportunity to attend any college or university.

And Dr. Julia Moore says that brings new challenges to HBCUs.

- Many of them are struggling to be funded and maintain their livelihood, but they're still a viable part of the African-American community's experience and sense of belonging and empowerment.

- And the empowerment that you receive attending an HBCU is like that of none other.

You're being taught and cultivated in a community that supports you and that understands you and your culture.

- [Narrator] Dr. State Alexander adds.

- And you can't really diminish that role.

And there's always a question about relevancy, even today, you say, why do you need Black colleges?

Well, you need them because people are relevant and they need to go wherever they feel comfortable, where they find that opportunity where they can excel in these educational environments.

That's what people need.

You know, Thomas Jefferson talked about a free society and education being the linchpin in the success of a free society.

Well, that's very much appropriate today.

We still need people to make America strong, and education provides that opportunity for everybody.

- [Narrator] Historically Black colleges and universities were born out of necessity in an era when systematic discrimination prevented African-Americans and other minorities the same opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution.

Today, they continue to lift up those needing a place to belong by providing an education and connection in their community.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.