HBCUs Produce Leaders Not Only Domestically, But Also Abroad - Higher Education

HBCUs Produce Leaders Not Only Domestically, But Also Abroad - Higher Education: In the late 1950s and early 1960s, alumni and officials of Black colleges like Lincoln and Howard became a familiar presence at independence celebrations of several African countries.

While some attended out of mere curiosity and sentiments of Black pride, the majority were there to support alumni who had, against difficult odds, fought for the independence of these new nations and were now running them.

They included alumni like Nnamdi Azikiwe, a classmate of Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall and member of Lincoln’s class of 1930, who became Nigeria’s first president in 1963; Kwame Nkrumah, prime minister of Ghana, Black Africa’s first country to gain independence and a member of Lincoln’s class of 1939; and Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a graduate of Meharry Medical College and Malawi’s first president.

Throughout the continent, alumni of leading Black colleges like Fisk, Howard, Lincoln and Tuskegee held prominent positions in government right after independence and in the years leading up to independence.