Howard University, in Washington D.C., was founded just after the Civil War in 1866 and opened its doors with a college of liberal arts and a college of medicine. Notable alumni include the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, opera singer Jessye Norman and Nobel laureate author Toni Morrison. Howard established the first systematic civil rights course in a U.S. law school in 1938. Today, the university awards more Ph.D.s in African-American studies than any other on-campus program anywhere in the world. Howard is a private university with 12 schools and colleges, 10,200 students and 120 undergraduate and graduate courses of study.
Tuskegee University began on July 4, 1881, as Negro Normal School in Tuskegee, Alabama, in a one-room shanty that housed 30 adult former slaves. The school's first principal was Dr. Booker T. Washington, who served in that role until his death in 1915. Washington led the school to national prominence through his tireless fundraising and his extraordinary personal connections. The school has since added the first black-staffed Veteran's Administration hospital, a school of veterinary medicine, colleges of aerospace engineering, architecture and physical sciences. The famed Tuskegee Airmen, a highly-decorated World War II all-black combat squadrons, were trained on campus. Today, Tuskegee has an enrollment of 3,000 students in engineering and science-focused programs, and boasts a championship football team with more than 600 wins and numerous titles.
Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in Tallahassee, the state capital, is an 1891 land-grant institution that is today part of the State of Florida university system. The school has an enrollment of 12,000 and offers 62 bachelor's degrees, 49 master's degree programs and 11 doctorates. FAMU, as it is called, has top programs in engineering, pharmaceutical and environmental sciences at the graduate level, and popular architecture, journalism, psychology and computer sciences at the undergraduate level. It also has an active sports program supported by the famous Florida A&M Marching Band.
Spelman College is a private liberal arts college founded in 1881 for the education of women of African descent. It is the first historically black college for women. Located just outside downtown Atlanta on an historic campus, Spelman has an enrollment of 2,100 and offers more than 25 undergraduate majors. Actress Esther Rolle, educator Marian Wright Edelman and author Alice Walker all attended Spelman.