Howard University

For wherever and whenever measures are advanced for the welfare of the people and the direction of the masses there the sons of Howard will be found in the midst of them…

Professor Kelly Miller, President's Address, Sixth Triennial Meeting of the College Alumni Association of Howard University, College Chapel, May 18, 1892.
African American Perspectives, 1818-1907

Building and Courtyard at Howard University, Washington, D.C. Theodor Horydczak, photographer, circa 1920-1950.
Washington as It Was, 1923-1959

On November 20, 1866, ten members of the First Congregational Society of Washington, D.C. gathered in the home of Deacon Henry Brewster for a missionary meeting. While there, they resolved to establish a seminary for the training of African-American preachers. By early 1867, the founders had broadened their mission to encompass a liberal arts college and university.

Howard University was incorporated on March 2, 1867, and accepted its first students the following May. Its founders envisioned the institution as a resource for the training of black teachers and preachers for the purpose of educating and uplifting the nearly four million recently emancipated slaves.

Major Gen. Oliver O. Howard, Officer of the Federal Army, circa 1860-1865.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

The University was named for Major General Oliver O. Howard, Civil War hero, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and one of the early founders of the institution. Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865 to provide practical assistance to the newly-freed slaves.

Howard, who served as Commissioner of the Bureau from 1865 until 1872, directed considerable resources towards establishing the university, including the original 3-acre campus, the Main Building, and the Old Medical School.

Howard University was one of several educational institutions funded by the Bureau for the purposes of providing education for the freedmen. The Freedmen's Bureau facilitated the building of forty-five hospitals and the education of approximately 150,000 former slaves before it was dismantled in 1872.

Portrait of Ralph Bunche, Carl Van Vechten, photographer, May 16, 1951.
Creative Americans: 1932-1964

Howard University's distinguished alumni include former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward William Brooke, sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, playwright Imamu Amiri Baraka, and statesman Ralph Bunche.

Charles Hamilton Houston, vice-dean of the Howard University law school from 1929-1935, was a key architect of the legal strategy that ultimately overturned the separate but equal standard adopted by the Supreme Court in 1894, bringing an end to the segregation of public facilities in the South. Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case that overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, was one of many lawyers who had studied with Houston at Howard.

• Search the following collections on the term Howard University to find more documents relevant to the university's history.
  • African American Perspectives, 1818-1907
  • African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
  • The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals
• Search on Howard University in Washington as It Was, 1923-1959 to find more images of the university.
• Before being appointed commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau by President Andrew Johnson, Oliver Howard, a West Point graduate, fought at the First Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Atlanta, and in the Carolinas. Search for images of these battle campaigns in Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865.
• Search the Today in History Archive on the keywords university or college for features on individual colleges and universities, and persons associated with these institutions. Learn, for example, about Daniel Webster and Dartmouth College, or Patrick Francis Healy, S.J., the African-Irish-American president of Georgetown University, or Amos Alonzo Stagg, football coach of the University of Chicago.