Clark Atlanta University

Atlanta University was founded on September 19, 1865, and was among the first HBCUs in the Southern United States. [ 11 ] It holds the distinction of being the nation's first graduate institution to award degrees to African Americans and the first to award bachelor's degrees to African Americans in the South. [ 12 ] Clark College, founded in 1869, was the nation's first four-year liberal arts college to serve African-American students. [ 13 ] The two institutions consolidated in 1988 to form Clark Atlanta University. [ 14 ] Atlanta University In the city of Atlanta, while the Civil War was well underway, two literate African American ex-slaves, James Tate and Grandison B. Daniels, in 1862 established the first school in Atlanta for African American children. It was located on the corner of Courtland and Jenkins Streets in a Baptist church building. [ 15 ] Tate and Daniels, along with 25 other former slaves, founded Friendship Baptist Church. They began holding classes in a church building built in 1848. [ 16 ] The school became Atlanta University in September 1865. [ 17 ] When white missionary Frederick Ayer , along with his wife, arrived in Atlanta in November 1865 under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, the AMA church purchased a boxcar for $310 (~$ 6,368 in 2024 ) in Chattanooga , Tennessee, and sent it to Friendship by the Ninth Street Baptist Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. The modest space of the boxcar served two purposes: a new teaching space for Atlanta University and a meeting space for the Friendship Church congregation. Tate and Daniels readily transferred their responsibilities to Ayer, who was better prepared to lead the educational effort, in 1865. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] Atlanta University was founded on September 19, 1865, [ 21 ] by James Tate and Grandison Daniels. [ 22 ] Two years later, Edmund Asa Ware of the American Missionary Association was appointed the first president.

[ 23 ] [ 24 ] Atlanta University was chartered in 1867 with the assistance from Oliver Otis Howard of the Freedmen's Bureau . He also appointed William J. White as educational agent of the Freedmen's Bureau on January 12, 1867. White was the half-brother of founder James Tate and was the co-founder of the Augusta Institute in 1867, which would become Morehouse College . He served as trustee of Atlanta University in 1869. AU was chartered on October 17, 1867. [ 25 ] It offered its first instruction at the postsecondary level in 1869. Its first graduating class was in 1873 (normal school for future teachers including women), and it awarded its first six bachelor's degrees in June 1876. [ 26 ] Atlanta University was among the first HBCUs to accept female students and the first to house women in a dormitory: its North Hall, built in 1869. [ 27 ] One woman earned a bachelor's degree from Atlanta University between 1876 and 1895, but in the next five years, seven women received bachelor's degrees there. [ 28 ] Atlanta University awarded bachelor's degrees 53 years (1876–1929) before exclusively offering graduate degrees. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] A 1912 catalog shows that Atlanta University had four divisions: the college and the normal school, and each had a preparatory division. Enrollment that year was 403: 40 college students, 62 normal students, 115 high school students in the college prep program and 183 high school students in the normal program. [ 31 ] At that time, half of the Atlanta University alumni were employed in teaching. There were a group of small Black colleges in Atlanta — Atlanta, Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, Morris Brown and Gammon — each guarding its independence but each dependent on Northern philanthropy. [ 32 ] By the end of World War I, the Northern philanthropists were demanding mergers to improve educational quality.

In 1929 the Atlanta University Affiliation was formed, and Atlanta University gained a new role as the graduate school, with Morehouse and Spelman as undergraduate colleges. Before World War II , the Affiliation came to include other Black colleges in Atlanta. On July 1, 1988, Atlanta University merged with Clark College, becoming Clark Atlanta University. [ 33 ] The Atlanta University campus was moved to its present site, and the modern organization of the Atlanta University Center emerged, with Clark College, Morris Brown College , and the Interdenominational Theological Center joining the affiliation later. Graduate Schools of Library Science, [ 34 ] Education, and Business Administration were established in 1941, 1944, and 1946, respectively. The Atlanta School of Social Work, long associated with the university, gave up its charter in 1947 to become an integral part of the university. In 1957, the controlling boards of the six institutions (Atlanta University; Clark, Morehouse, Morris Brown and Spelman Colleges; and Gammon Theological Seminary) ratified new articles of affiliation. The new contract created the Atlanta University Center. The influence of Atlanta University has been extended through professional journals and organizations, including Phylon , and through the work of W. E. B. Du Bois , a member of the center. [ 35 ] The significance of Atlanta University Center rests in the quality of its leaders, faculty, and graduates. [ 36 ] Edmund Asa Ware was Atlanta University's spiritual and intellectual father. [ 37 ] His dedication to academic excellence and rejection of racial inferiority influenced other black colleges and American education in general. [ 38 ] John Hope, former Morehouse president and Atlanta University's first black president, is noted in every history of American education during the first half of this century.

[ 39 ] Atlanta University's most famous faculty member (1897–1910) was Du Bois, who began the Atlanta Studies on Negro Sociology and later became the director of publications for the NAACP .