Morehouse college





Morehouse College is one of ten historically Black colleges and universities in Georgia. Located a few miles from downtown Atlanta in the historic West End district, Morehouse is one of only five all-male colleges in the United States and the only one for African Americans.

The college began as Augusta Institute, founded during Reconstruction in 1867 by William J. White and Richard C. Coulter, a former freedman. Located in Augusta, the school received support and sponsorship from the American Baptist Home Mission Society, an organization involved in the development of several colleges for Blacks during the nineteenth century. The first few years proved difficult for the school. Financial troubles plagued the institute and forced its temporary closure on several occasions. It also encountered trouble from the white population of Augusta. One of the school’s early leaders, the Reverend W. D. Siegfried, was forced out of the community after it became known that he had written a letter to a northern newspaper criticizing the treatment of Blacks by whites in the city.

In 1871, under the leadership of Joseph T. Robert, Augusta Institute began a period of stability. Still, the school’s location in Augusta hampered recruiting and fund-raising efforts, and in 1879 the institute relocated to Atlanta, the center of Black higher education in the South. The school became the Atlanta Baptist Seminary. The new Atlanta location at Elliott and West Hunter streets soon proved challenging the site was adjacent to a railroad yard and a lumber mill, and the noise and smoke made teaching all but impossible. In 1885 the school moved to Atlanta’s West End neighborhood. The campus encompassed fourteen acres and contained remnants of the defensive positions occupied by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

In 1897 the institution again changed its name, to the Atlanta Baptist College, and granted its first baccalaureate degrees. The school entered into a period of excellence and began to acquire the atmosphere of a true college, as numerous student organizations and athletic teams were founded. In 1906 John Hope assumed the presidency, becoming the first Black president of a college supported and controlled by white northerners. A native of Augusta, Hope was a graduate of Brown University in Rhode Island and had been a professor at Atlanta Baptist College since 1898. During his tenure, the college expanded its course offerings, increased the number of facilities, and earned a reputation for academic excellence.

Morehouse College In 1913 the school changed its name for the final time, becoming Morehouse College. The new name honored Henry L. Morehouse, the corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.
In 1929 Morehouse officially affiliated with two other local colleges for African Americans, Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University) and Spelman College. Morehouse and Spelman served as the undergraduate institutions, and Atlanta University served as a graduate school, thereby providing the undergraduate institutions immediate access to graduate facilities in an era when Black students were denied entrance to southern research universities.

This partnership evolved to become the Atlanta University Center, which now contains five member colleges. The affiliate members also chose Hope as the new president of Atlanta University. Over the next several years Hope worked to ensure the financial future of Morehouse before resigning the presidency of Morehouse in 1931 (although he remained the president of Atlanta University).


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South carolina state university







“The institution was founded in 1896 in Orangeburg as the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina. It was and remains, as of the early twenty-first century, the only state-assisted, historically black, land-grant institution in South Carolina.


In 1872 the General Assembly had established the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) Institute under the provisions of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act. For twenty-four years the A&M school was attached to Claflin University, a Methodist institution. Following the separation from Claflin, the new school was supported in part by funds provided by the 1890 Morrill Land-Grant Act.


When the first students and faculty arrived in 1896, the campus was a sparse and unattractive place. The main building, Morrill Hall, was still under construction. There were no paved roads, no running water, and no electricity. During its early years the college was devoted to training black youngsters to be teachers, farmers, homemakers, and skilled artisans. The institution offered instruction in subjects such as poultry science, carpentry, harness making, cheese making, and sewing as well as academic courses including literature, history, and Latin. Most students were enrolled in primary and secondary grades. Few students earned college degrees. All students were required to work. Some were employed on the campus farm, and others worked in the laundry or the dining hall. Many of the early campus buildings were constructed by students under the supervision of faculty.”


”As South Carolina's only public, historically black college and university (HBCU), we pride ourselves on providing an exceptional educational experience to all of our students. Since our establishment in 1896, we have helped to educate generations of scholars and leaders.


“SC State is South Carolina's only Research 2 (R2) university as classified by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The R2 status signifies a university with "high research activity," meaning it spends at least $5 million on research and awards at least 20 research doctorates annually. SC State exceeds both criteria. Our graduates lead the way in such diverse fields as business, military service, government, athletics, medicine, engineering, the arts, and more. Our alumni have taken all they learned at SC State and used it to better their lives, their communities and their country. We are more than just our history, though. Today, we serve diverse students from our state, across the U.S. and around the world, with more than 30,000 active alumni and more than 2,900 current students.”




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North Carolina A&T State University





“North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, public historically Black university founded in 1891 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. Utilizing federal financial support from the Second Morrill Act (1890), this land-grant college was established for the benefit of Black Americans and sought “to teach practical agriculture and mechanic arts and such branches of learning as relate there to, not excluding academic and classical instruction.”

The college awarded its first degrees in 1899, began restricting enrollment to men only in 1902 (until 1928, when the restriction was lifted), and was renamed Negro Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina in 1915. The school’s name changed again in 1957, to Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, and a final name change, to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, came 10 years later.

One of the country’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), North Carolina A&T has been a constituent institution in the University of North Carolina system since 1972. North Carolina A&T is widely known for the critical role its students played in the 20th-century civil rights movement. Four freshmen—Ezell Blair, Jr. (later Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond—organized the movement’s first sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter on February 1, 1960. Their actions inspired and galvanized other Black university students, and the sit-in movement spread throughout the segregated South, leading to the integration of dining facilities across the region.


Variously known as the Greensboro Four and the A&T Four, the students and their activism are commemorated on the North Carolina A&T campus with the February One Monument, an outdoor sculpture that is also a stop on the United States Civil Rights Trail.
North Carolina A&T is the largest HBCU, with more than 13,000 students. Most of the university’s students are undergraduates and more than 80 percent are Black or African American. North Carolina A&T offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in a variety of disciplines, and it awards doctoral degrees in agricultural and environmental sciences, electrical and mechanical engineering, leadership studies, and computer science, among other subjects.


Studies take place through the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics the College of Education the College of Engineering the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences the College of Science and Technology the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering the School of Nursing and the Graduate and Honors colleges.


Opportunities exist for students to participate in cooperative education programs, to study abroad, and to cross-register at other area institutions. The university’s sports teams compete in the Coastal Athletic Association in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).”


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North carolina Central University







“Dr. James E. Shepard, a successful businessman who was thought to be one of the wealthiest African Americans in the United States during the early 1900s, opened the doors of the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race on July 5, 1910.

In doing so, he boldly declared its purpose to be “the development in young men and women of the character and sound academic training requisite for real service to the nation.” The institution was sold and reorganized in 1915 as the National Training School. The first four-year class graduated on June 6, 1929.


In 1923, the North Carolina state legislature converted the institution into the North Carolina College for Negroes and dedicated it to liberal arts education and the preparation of teachers and principals. The college thus became the nation’s first state-supported liberal arts college for black students.


In 1938, the General Assembly authorized North Carolina College to start offering several new programs, including graduate degrees in liberal arts and professional programs including history, art, law, and library science.


In 1939, the college offered its first graduate-level courses in the arts and sciences. The School of Law opened in 1940. Throughout this period of change, Dr. Shepard continued to serve the college, acting as its president until his death in 1947. Today's NCCU still honors his contribution, with visits to the historic Shepard House a proud University tradition.”


“North Carolina Central University, with a strong tradition of teaching, research, and service, prepares students to become global leaders and practitioners who transform communities. Through a nationally recognized law school, highly acclaimed and innovative programs in visual and performing arts, sciences, business, humanities, and education programs, NCCU students are engaged problem solvers. Located in the Research Triangle, the University advances research in the biotechnological, biomedical, informational, computational, behavioral, social, and health sciences. Our students enhance the quality of life of citizens and the economic development of North Carolina, the nation, and the world.”


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Howard University







“Since 1867, Howard has awarded more than 100,000 degrees in the professions, arts, sciences and humanities. Howard ranks among the highest producers of the nation's Black professionals in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, nursing, architecture, religion, law, music, social work and education.

The University has long held a commitment to the study of disadvantaged persons in American society and throughout the world. The goal is the elimination of inequities related to race, color, social, economic and political circumstances. As the only truly comprehensive predominantly Black university, Howard is one of the major engineers of change in our society. Through its traditional and cutting-edge academic programs, the University seeks to improve the circumstances of all people in the search for peace and justice on earth.


Talitha Washington Howard has grown from a single-frame building in 1867 and evolved to more than 89 acres, including the six-story, 400-bed Howard University Hospital. Since 1974, it has expanded to include a 22-acre School of Law West Campus, a 22-acre School of Divinity East Campus and another three-fifths of an acre facility in northeast Washington and a 108-acre tract of land in Beltsville, Maryland.


Howard prepares men and women to advance social justice and the preservation of human liberty. In each of its 13 schools and colleges, Howard University seeks to develop technically competent and morally committed individuals. The University's library system contains more than 1.8 million volumes, including the Channing Pollock Collection. The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas and other parts of the world.


The University competes in 19 varsity sports including basketball, football, bowling, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, both indoor and outdoor track and volleyball. Regarded as one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world, current enrollment approximates 16,000 studentsBack to Top of Page from virtually every state, the District of Columbia, and more than 70 countries. The University traditionally has had the largest gathering of Black scholars in the world.”


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Delaware state university







“The Delaware College for Colored Students, now known as Delaware State University, was established May 15, 1891, by the Delaware General Assembly under the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1890 by which land-grant colleges for Blacks came into existence in states maintaining separate educational facilities.

With the appointment of an inaugural six-member Board of Trustees, that governing body used part of the initial $8,000 state appropriation to purchase a 95-acre property north of the state capital of Dover to establish the new college. Because there was already a private Delaware College (now the University of Delaware) located in Newark, DE, to avoid confusion new state legislation was passed and enacted in early 1893 to change the black school’s name to the State College for Colored Students. That would be the institution’s name for the next 54 years.


Through the conservative and practical planning of the Board of Trustees appointed by Delaware Gov. Robert J. Reynolds, the College was launched upon its mission of education and public service on February 2, 1892. Five courses of study leading to a baccalaureate degree were offered: Agricultural, Chemical, Classical, Engineering and Scientific. A Preparatory Department was established in 1893 for students who were not qualified to pursue a major course of study upon entrance.


A three-year normal course leading to a teacher’s certificate was initiated in 1897. The College graduated its first class of degree candidates in May 1898. The normal course of study (teacher education) was extended to four years in 1911 and the Bachelor of Pedagogy degree was awarded to students upon satisfactory completion of the curriculum.”

“The University’s physical infrastructure has grown from its 1891 beginning as a 100-acre property with three buildings to a beautiful 356-acre main campus with over 50 buildings and four outdoor athletic fields. The University also has locations in downtown Dover and Wilmington, DE, and two farm properties in Kenton and Smyrna, DE. Its Aviation Program maintains its fleet of planes and base of operation at the Delaware Air Park in Cheswold, DE.”


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Claflin University








“Claflin combines a broad-based education in the liberal arts and sciences with internships, hands-on learning, and career-focused programs.”


“Claflin University, private historically Black institution founded in 1869 by Methodist missionaries to provide education for formerly enslaved men and women. Located in Orangeburg, South Carolina, 75 miles (120 km) west of Charleston, the university is named for Lee Claflin, a prominent Boston philanthropist, and his son William Claflin, then governor of Massachusetts, who provided the school with financial support (William Claflin also founded Boston University the same year).


Claflin University was South Carolina’s first institution to provide higher education for both men and women “regardless of race, complexion, or religious opinion.” According the university charter, the only requirements for admission were “good moral character and a conscientious desire to learn.”


“The Claflin College of Agriculture and Mechanical Institute (also known as the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical Institute) was established at the university in 1872, receiving state funding through the Land-Grant College Act of 1862. The institute split from the university in 1896, becoming the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina and later South Carolina State University.”


“In 1879 Claflin presented its first honorary degrees, and Claflin University’s Normal Department graduated its first class. The school awarded its first bachelor degrees in 1882. Claflin changed from a university to a college in 1979 but was reinstated as Claflin University in 1999.”


“The school continues to be affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Claflin University students played a significant role in local events in the civil rights movement—including joining with South Carolina State Agricultural and Mechanical College students in a 1960 lunch counter sit-in and hosting a February 1965 visit from Martin Luther King, Jr.”


“In 1968 six Claflin students were injured when police opened fire on a protest at a segregated bowling alley at South Carolina State University—three SC State University students were killed. The movement on campus and in South Carolina was documented by student Cecil Williams (graduated 1960), Jet magazine’s youngest-ever photographer. In 2019 Williams founded the Cecil Williams South Carolina Civil Rights Museum in Orangeburg.”



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Elizabeth city state university





“As a member of the University of North Carolina System, ECSU offers a wide range of degree programs and certificates that empower new, professional opportunities, and personal growth. Our signature areas of study include the humanities, education, and aviation. Every academic program at ECSU uses advanced technologies and hands-on learning to provide a valuable, high-quality education at an affordable cost. It’s always about affordable excellence here.


Our community has everything students need to discover who they are, connect with expert instructors, and leave ready to conquer in their career. We always seek new ways to better serve our students and strengthen our community. To us, every student matters – and it shows.


”In the early 1890s, Hugh Cale, an African-American legislator from Pasquotank County, recognized the need for an institution to teach black educators in North Carolina. On March 3, 1891, Cale’s proposal passed in the state legislature. The school’s location became Elizabeth City so the institution could serve students living in the eastern section of the state.

According to the university’s website, the school’s original purpose was “teaching and training teachers of the colored race to teach in the common schools of North Carolina” (Historical Highlights). Originally called the Elizabeth State Colored Normal School, the institution started in January 1892 but on a meager budget of less than $1,000.


Peter W. Moore became the school’s first president, serving from 1891 to 1928. Under Moore’s direction, enrollment at Elizabeth State increased from 23 to 355 students, and the faculty size increased to 15 members. Moore retired on July 1, 1928, and John Henry Bias became the new president. Elizabeth State grew under the guidance of the second president as much as it had with its first. In 1937,


President Bias led the school to become a four-year teachers college, and in 1939 the name was changed to Elizabeth City Teachers College. In that same year, Elizabeth City “granted its first bachelor’s degrees in 1939 in elementary education” (Powell, p. 390).
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Thirty years after graduating its first teachers, Elizabeth City was inducted into the University of North Carolina system in 1972, and its name was changed to Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). By the start of the twenty-first century, Elizabeth City received numerous funds for improvements to its campus. The Higher Education Bond Referendum allotted $46.3 million to the institution, and several buildings were built throughout the school, including a physical education building, a field house, and a student complex. Other structures include a pharmacy complex and several residence halls.”




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Clark Atlanta University





Clark Atlanta University, private, historically Black university located in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. It is a member of the Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUCC), a group of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that also includes Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College. Clark Atlanta University was established in 1988 through the merger of two institutions: Atlanta University and Clark College.

Founded in 1865 by the American Missionary Association with support from the Freedmen’s Bureau, Atlanta University was the country’s first university to provide graduate training for Black Americans. Sociologist and American civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois was a faculty member in the university’s history and economics departments from 1897 to 1910, and he later served as chair of the sociology department (1934–44). A four-year undergraduate institution established in 1869, Clark College was the first in the country to educate a mostly Black student body.


The college was named for Bishop Davis Wasgatt Clark, the first president of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Clark Atlanta University remains affiliated with the United Methodist Church. More than 4,000 students, mostly undergraduates, attend the university. Degree programs are conducted at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels in more than 40 major areas of study through the Schools of Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, and Social Work.


Special academic options include internships, cooperative education programs, cross-registration with other members of the AUCC, accelerated degrees, an honors program, and study abroad. Five-year engineering programs are available in conjunction with various other institutions.


The university’s varsity sports teams compete in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in Division II of the NCAA. Notable alumni include poet and chronicler of Black culture James Weldon Johnson, civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy, and television writer and director Kenya Barris. Film director, writer, and producer Spike Lee is a well-known and proud alumnus of AUCC member Morehouse College, but he refined his filmmaking skills while taking classes at Clark Atlanta University.


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Spelman College





“Spelman College, the nation’s oldest historically Black college for women, has provided women with access to education since the post–Civil War (1861-65) era. A predominantly residential, private, liberal arts college, Spelman promotes academic excellence in the liberal arts and develops the intellectual, ethical, and leadership potential of its students.


The college employs about 150 full-time faculty, approximately 85 percent of whom hold Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees. Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees are offered in the fine arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and education.

As a member of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) consortium, Spelman students enjoy the benefits of a small college while having access to the faculty and physical resources of five other historically black institutions. Spelman College’s history began on April 11, 1881. With the help of Frank Quarles, pastor of Atlanta’s Friendship Baptist Church, Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles, schoolteachers and Baptist missionaries from New England, started a school in the church’s basement.


The school was supported by the Woman’s American Baptist Home Mission Society and named the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary. With $100 from the First Baptist Church of Medford, Massachusetts, the founders embarked on a noble mission—providing quality education to Black women and girls. Ten women, some of whom were formerly enslaved, and one young girl, eager to acquire basic educational skills, constituted the first student body. The basement soon overflowed, and it became imperative to move to larger and more suitable quarters.

Through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller, whom Packard and Giles met at a church conference in Cleveland, Ohio, the school was able to relocate from its basement quarters to a nine-acre site once used as army barracks by Union troops during the Civil War. In 1884 the school expressed its gratitude for Rockefeller’s generosity by changing the name of the school to Spelman Seminary in honor of the parents of his wife, Laura Spelman Rockefeller.

The school was legally organized with a charter and a board of trustees in 1888 under the presidency of Packard. In 1891 Harriet Giles succeeded Sophia Packard and served as president of Spelman for eighteen years. During her tenure the school enrolled 800 students, employed 30 teachers, and owned property valued at $90,000.

Curricular offerings expanded to include high school and college programs of instruction, teacher training, missionary training, and nurses’ training. The seminary conferred its first high school diplomas in 1887 and its first college degrees in 1901. Giles’s death on November 12, 1909, marked the end of the era of the founders. From 1910 to 1953 the seminary experienced unprecedented growth during the presidencies of Lucy Hale Tapley (1910-27) and Florence Matilda Read (1927-53). On June 1, 1924,


Spelman Seminary officially became Spelman College, and substantial strides were made in its curriculum and organization. An “Agreement of Affiliation,” signed in 1929, set up a university system in which Spelman and Morehouse colleges served as undergraduate institutions and Atlanta University served as a graduate school, thereby providing the undergraduate institutions immediate access to graduate facilities in an era when Black students were denied entrance to southern research universities.”




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Virginia state university



“Virginia State University was founded on this date in 1882. They are one of 100 historically Black colleges and universities in America (HBCUs). VSU emerged when the legislature passed a bill to charter the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. The bill was sponsored by Delegate Alfred W. Harris, a Black attorney with offices in Petersburg who lived in and represented Dinwiddie County in the General Assembly.

A hostile lawsuit delayed opening day for nineteen months, until October 1, 1883. In 1902, the legislature revised the charter act to curtail the collegiate program and to change the name to Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute. In 1920, the land-grant program for Blacks was moved from a private school, Hampton Institute, where it had been since 1872, to Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute.
In 1923, the college program was restored, and the name was changed to Virginia State College for Negroes in 1930. The two-year branch in Norfolk was added to the college in 1944 the Norfolk division became a four-year branch in 1956 and gained independence as Norfolk State College in 1969. Meanwhile, the parent school was renamed Virginia State College in 1946.

Finally, the legislature passed a law in 1979 to provide the present name, Virginia State University. In the first academic year, 1883-84, the University had 126 students and seven faculty (all of them Black), one building, 33 acres, a 200-book library, and a $20,000 budget. By the centennial year of 1982, the University was fully integrated with a student body of nearly 5,000, a full-time faculty of about 250, a library containing 200,000 books and 360,000 microform and non-print items, a 236-acre campus and 416-acre farm, more than 50 buildings, including 15 dormitories and 16 classroom buildings, and a biennial budget of $31,000,000, exclusive of capital outlay.

The University is situated in Chesterfield County at Ettrick, on a bluff across the Appomattox River from the city of Petersburg, Petersburg.

The University is only two-and-a-half hours away from Washington, D.C., to the north, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area to the southwest, and Charlottesville to the northwest. Virginia State University has a long history of outstanding faculty and administration, the first person to be President John Mercer Langston.”



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Hampton university







“In 1863, using government funds to continue the work started by Mary Peake, General Butler founded the Butler School for Negro children, where students were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and grammar, as well as various housekeeping skills. Samuel Armstrong Samuel Armstrong Brigadier General Samuel Armstrong was appointed in 1866 to Superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau of the Ninth District of Virginia.

Drawing upon his experiences with mission schools in Hawaii, he procured funding from the American Missionary Association to establish a school on the Wood Farm, also known as “Little Scotland” adjacent to the Butler School. On April 1, 1868, Armstrong opened Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute with a simple declared purpose. “The thing to be done was clear: to train selected Negro youth who should go out and teach and lead their people first by example, by getting land and homes to give them not a dollar that they could earn for themselves to teach respect for labor, to replace stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and in this way to build up an industrial system for the sake not only of self-support and intelligent labor, but also for the sake of character.”
“Practical experience in trades and industrial skills were emphasized and students were able to pay their way through school by working in various jobs throughout the burgeoning campus. The Butler School, which was succeeded in 1889 by the Whittier School, was used as a practice ground for teaching students of the Hampton Normal School.”
“Hampton University puts you right in the middle of it. Because, as you’ll soon discover, you’re not just a part of Hampton University, Hampton University is a part of you. While our roots reach deep into the history of this nation and the African-American experience, our sights — like yours — are set squarely on the horizons of the global community of the 21st century. Rich in history, steeped in tradition, Hampton University is a dynamic, progressive institution of higher education, providing a broad range of technical, liberal arts, and graduate degree programs. In addition to being one of the top historically black universities in the world, Hampton University is a tightly-knit community of learners and educators, representing 49 states and 35 territories and nations.




Morgan state university







Founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute by the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the institution's original mission was to train young men in ministry. It subsequently broadened its mission to educate both men and women as teachers. The school was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honor of the Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its Board of Trustees, who donated land to the college. Morgan awarded its first baccalaureate degree to George F. McMechen in 1895. McMechen later obtained a law degree from Yale and eventually returned to Baltimore, where he became a civic leader and one of Morgan's strongest financial supporters.

Carnegie Hall In 1915 the late Andrew Carnegie gave the school a conditional grant of $50,000 for the central academic building. The terms of the grant included the purchase of a new site for the College, payment of all outstanding obligations, and the construction of a building to be named after him. The College met the conditions and moved to its present site in northeast Baltimore in 1917. Carnegie Hall, the oldest original building on the present MSU campus, was erected two years later.

Morgan remained a private institution until 1939. That year, the state of Maryland purchased the school in response to a state study that determined that Maryland needed to provide more opportunities for its black citizens.

From its beginnings as a public campus, Morgan was open to students of all races. By the time it became a public campus, the College had become a relatively comprehensive institution. Until the mid-1960s, when the state's teachers colleges began their transition to liberal arts campuses, Morgan and the University of Maryland College Park were the only two public campuses in the state with comprehensive missions.

As Maryland's teachers colleges began to broaden their objective, Morgan and other like institutions, were placed into a state college system governed by a Board of Trustees. However, in 1975 the State Legislature designated Morgan as a university, gave it the authority to offer doctorates, and provided for it to once again have its own governing board. In 1988 Maryland reorganized its higher education structure and strengthened its coordinating board, the Higher Education Commission.
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The campuses in the state college system became part of the University of Maryland System. Morgan and St. Mary's College of Maryland were the only public baccalaureate-granting institutions authorized to have their own governing boards. The legislation also strengthened Morgan's authority to offer advanced programs and designated the campus as Maryland's Public Urban University.

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