“If we just build our businesses and only do business with each other, we not only will survive but prosper.”        
 
                           Booker T Washington

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 "Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."
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                             George Washington Carver

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Faith and HBCU’s: Preserving and Celebrating ‘Our’ Culture and Heritage.
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​The Faith Community is the economic engine of Forgotten Communities. The Faith Networks are the facilitators of cultural education and processes. Churches and ministries created to share the knowledge of nationally recognized faith and cultural practitioners, with elders, community leaders and organizations across the country. ‘We’, as a people, are people of faith. Our faith has sustained us through the most trying of circumstances. Now it is time for us to come together and ‘Rebuild Our Communities’. It sustained and guided our ancestors through slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow. They brought their culture, their heritage, their skills and most importantly, their faith. They built communities, churches, schools, businesses and gave us our culture and heritage. The rest is history. 

Faith sustained Dr. Booker T. Washington and Dr. George Washington Carver, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, and all our great ancestors. It sustained them through the trials of slavery and colonialism. Faith is the immeasurable ingredient that made this country great, and faith will help us face the challenges of our generation and those of the future. 

‘We’ are the greatest generations our ancestors have ever produced. It is time for us to revisit our roots and reclaim the faith and visions of our past. We have the skills and knowledge base to claim the opportunities America has in store, by coming together as a community and focus on rebuilding our own forty acres. If a service or product is needed, ‘we’ can provide it; ‘we’ have the skills, talents and the knowledge to complete this great task. Partnering with people of faith, using biblical principles will ensure ‘our’ success. Remember, our ancestors paid a heavy price to ensure we would have the life we now enjoy. ‘We’ now must do our part! Rebuild the Walls in Your Community.

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​The rich heritage of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) reflects the culture and strength of African Americans and the People of Pan Africa. HBCUs were founded as a response to the end of the Civil War and the need for newly freed slaves to receive education.  However, it is important to note that were HBCUs founded prior to the end of the Civil War—Lincoln University (PA), Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, and Wilberforce University.  Many early HBCUs were funded by White Missionary groups and White Philanthropists.  Though there were varying views on what and how African Americans should be educated, these two groups provided funds so that this could be accomplished. African American communities also contributed financially to these institutions. In fact, Wilberforce University was the first HBCU founded by African Americans, as a vision of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
church, the U.S.’s oldest Black Christian denomination. 

HBCUs are also more than institutions of higher education. They also have and continue to serve as cultural centers and hubs of community organizing. Many political movements that greatly affected the African American community found their roots on HBCU campuses or with HBCU students. HBCUs are also credited with being instrumental to building the Black middle class in the US. Currently there are conversations questioning the relevancy of HBCUs. HBCUs are still very much relevant and necessary in the landscape of US higher education. HBCUs provide access to higher education for many underrepresented, first generation, and low-income students. HBCUs also provide an option for students who desire a close knit, supportive environment for college. For African American students in particular, HBCUs offer a racially empowering environment, culturally infused curriculum, and racially diverse faculty. HBCUs were founded to provide an opportunity for African Americans to be educationally, socially, and economically empowered through higher education. HBCUs continue to exist to not only continue to offer that opportunity, but to be centers of social activism in communities, and to offer a place for students who may be or feel disenfranchised in other environments to come and feel a sense of belonging, purpose, and support to serve and achieve. 
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​The Historical Black Colleges and Universities are the repositories for the African American Culture and History. There are 105 historically black universities and colleges. Most of these academic institutions were created in the United States, after the Civil War. They were defined by the Higher Education Act of 1965 as any college or university established prior to 1964 whose main mission was (and is) to educate black Americans, and were accredited--or made strides toward being accredited--by nationally-recognized agencies.

These historical institutions offer stories of courage, dedication, and commitment to the ideal of intellectual pursuit, for all Americans. They not only educate, they celebrate the culture in the arts and invite others to come and explore the magnificence of the People of African Descent.  The campuses are alive with the spiritual brilliance of the culture’s ancestors. There is no greater experience than standing at the gravesite of legends, such as Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver at Tuskegee or Mary McLeod Bethune at Bethune University. Historical Black Colleges and Universities are cultural institutions in our society structure and is a critical asset in the development of our economic base. Where will we be as culture, economically - and as a people; had not the HBCU’s been created?”

Come Visit Us!! We are YOUR HBCU!! 
LIST OF HISTORICAL BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

CLICK LINK:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historically_black_colleges_and_universities
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