The Role of the Predominantly Negro Institutions

Abstract

Three points should be made at the outset. First, we should recognize that a major characteristic of this period of American life is an enlarged sensitivity of the national conscious to the indispensible value of higher education and consequently the need for every existing' institution to accommodate the irresistible flow of oncoming students. Second, the period is characterized by demand that education break out of conventional molds and take on new and better ways to meet a variety of imperatives imposed by diversity in the flow of oncoming students. Both of these points bear heavily on my observations regarding Negro colleges and universities as part of American higher education. A third point is this: I believe too much emphasis is placed on when referring to Negro and white colleges. Use of the word predominantly adds little to the equation. It so happens that a group of colleges