Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 120

The American Missionary Association, with support from the Freedmen’s Bureau, founded Atlanta University. It became the first graduate institution serving African Americans. The school began granting bachelor’s degrees by the late 1870s and supplied black teachers and librarians to public schools throughout the southern United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was a member of the Atlanta University faculty during the early years of the twentieth century. During his tenure, he helped to found the NAACP, as well as Phylon, a scholarly journal on race and culture, and agitated for civil rights after the Atlanta race riot of 1906. In 1929 Atlanta University offered its first programs of graduate study, expanding these to include library science (1941), education (1944), business administration (1946), and social work (1947). Whitney Young Jr. continued civil rights activism during his tenure as dean of the social work program. The institution also cooperated with Morehouse College and Spelman College within the Atlanta University System. In subsequent years Clark College, Morris Brown College, and the Interdenominational Theological Center joined to create the Atlanta University Center (AUC) in 1957. Students from AUC were active in March 1960 sit-ins to desegregate downtown Atlanta establishments. On July 1, 1988, Atlanta University merged with Clark College and became known as Clark Atlanta University. Walter Broadnax succeeded Thomas W. Cole Jr., the first president of the new institution, on August 1, 2002.

Fletcher F. Moon