Howard University Construction in 1869. This sketch shows discussion between the architects regarding a new and untried type of cinderblock used in its construction.
The university, which today has the highest concentration of African American students and faculty of any institution in the world, was granted its charter in 1867, receiving funding from the Freedmen’s Bureau, philanthropy, and student tuition. Offering predominately liberal arts courses, the co-ed school quickly expanded to law, medicine, and other fields of study.
Howard’s co-founder and eventual namesake, General Oliver O. Howard, served as its president from 1869 to 1874. He was was quoted in saying, “The opposition to Negro education made itself felt everywhere … the freed men [in] any room or building … might be taught. In 1865, 1866, and 1867, mobs of the baser classes … in all parts of the South, occasionally burned school buildings and churches used as schools, flogged teachers or drove them away, and in a number of instances murdered them.” Harper’s Weekly, March 20, 1869.