Pride and paradox

But no matter their financial resources, Atlanta's black colleges say they share the same mission: educating African-American students in a uniquely supportive environment. "HBCUs continue to provide this sense of academic community that is comfortable and safe for a certain segment of American society that hasn't been safe in all majority environments," says Juan McGruder, a professor of education at Clark Atlanta University.

HBCUs are the rare place in American higher education where a white visitor stands out. Almost everyone on campus - from students to campus police officers - is African-American. The faculty, while largely black, is also comprised of other races.

These schools are small - all six could fit in a Big 10 campus with plenty of room to spare, and yet you can walk for hours and not see any non-African-Americans, with the exception of construction workers.

That environment appeals to both students who grew up in predominantly black neighborhoods and those who attended mostly white schools. Take Charles Warner, who came to Morehouse from New Haven, Conn. "Society is threatened by black men," Mr. Warner says. "They have greater expectations for us to fail and be delinquent. Here, we have a sense of pride, being part of a continuous stream of achievement."

Reminders of that rich heritage are everywhere. At Morehouse, for example, a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. stands outside a chapel that also bears his name. In March 1960, King joined the first student-organized demonstration in Atlanta.

The Atlanta University Center's student civil rights organization, the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, led three years of nonviolent protests that helped integrate the city's movie theaters, lunch counters, and parks, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Those protests helped create an environment in which black applicants can apply to any college they want. And yet many HBCU students say there's no school they'd rather attend.

Celeste Burrell, for example, came to Spelman from Chattanooga, Tenn., where she was one of 10 African-American students in her high school graduating class. She applied to a black college because she thought something was missing in her childhood. "It's totally a life-altering experience," Ms. Burrell says. "I never knew there were so many educated African-Americans. I feel like I fit in better."

Even parents who attended predominantly white colleges a generation ago encourage their children to consider HBCUs. It's a choice that Spelman College President Beverly Tatum knows well: Her teenage son is about to apply to college himself.

"As a parent of a young African-American student, I ask 'What is the institutional commitment to creating an inclusive environment?' " says Dr. Tatum, who graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Michigan - the center of last week's Supreme Court affirmative action decision.

"I want him to be celebrated as a young African-American with high academic achievements," she says.

Leaving the all-black college setting can be jarring for some students, says Clark Atlanta junior Sophia Wilson. She says it will be easier for her having attended a mostly white high school in New Jersey than for classmates who went to all black high schools and then enrolled at HBCUs.

"It can be a culture shock never having seen anything else," Ms. Wilson says.

Tatum says the smaller classes and more accessible faculty ensure that students stay in school and develop the confidence they need to thrive in a white-dominated world.

Graduation statistics suggest black colleges succeed in that mission of educating 270,000 students each year. While they enroll 16 percent of African-American college students, HBCU students are more likely to graduate than peers at predominantly white institutions.

As a result, a quarter of black students receiving bachelor's degrees earn them at HBCUs, says William Harvey, director of the American Council on Education's Office of Minorities in Higher Education. Xavier University in New Orleans produces more African-American medical students than any other school in the country, with Spelman close behind.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3