Justin Morrill Land Grant College Acts and Jim Crow Laws
Justin Morrill challenged Jim Crow laws by authoring Land Grant College Acts in 1862 and 1890 to establish public higher education that opened debate on high education for black students.
Justin Morrill's first Land Grant College Act, passed in 1862, provided funding for public higher educational institutions through public land sales, but did not specify that the funding exclude black higher education. With this matter on the table, black higher education was opened to debate, causing a direct threat the Jim Crow laws. The exact language of Morrill's act was: "An act donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and mechanic arts."
Some observers say Justin Morrill was obsessed with educating America because he was not able to attend college due to his family's poverty. He designed the Land Grant College Acts to make it possible for poor students in the same position he had experienced to attain higher education without bankrupting the family. By today's standards, it could include not being strapped with student loans too high to pay.
Under the Jim Crow laws of former Confederate states, which excluded former slaves from higher education, white only schools were established under the Justin Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862. In an effort to guarantee higher education for the former slave population, Morrill struggled with racist legislators to pass a new law, The Land Grant College Act of1890. This new Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1890 prohibited former Confederate states from hiding behind the Justin Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862 to use federal land sales for white only schools.
The Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1890 prohibited former Confederate states from claiming separate but equal colleges for different races, unless they divided those revenues from public federal land sales. Public college education for former slaves must be included in an appropriate division of auction money earned from the sale of public land. If former Confederate states operating under Jim Crow laws did not comply with the new Morrill Act, they would lose federal land grant college funding or allow all students, regardless of color, to attend their formerly segregated schools.
The direct threat to Jim Crow laws in former Confederate states caused them all to go scrambling to build colleges for black students. However, most of the colleges for black students continued to be underfunded and unequal to white schools for decades to come. As long as possible former Confederate states avoided equitable division of funds derived from public land sales.
The 1890 Land Grant College Act established a legal framework that satisfied Morrill's law and the separate but equal requirements of the former Confederate South. This new legislation provided education for former slaves, although not comparable, that the first Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862 had provided for white students only.
By the 1896, Jim Crow laws were a way of life in the United States. Jim Crow laws, instituted during slavery, were later sanctioned by the Supreme Court Decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, a case involving an African American man suing the railroad on the claim of discrimination because he was prevented from using his first-class train ticket. He lost. African Americans lost. Education lost. And the nation lost in more areas than the former Confederate South.
However, in 1958, Clara Luper (left) led the first sit-in to be publicized in U.S. history. As a result of the publicity of her protest, she integrated the Jim Crow Katz Drugstore lunch counter in Oklahoma City and motivated similar racial protests to integrate other Jim Crow facilities around the state, contributing to the integration of Oklahoma. The publicity generated by Luper's achievement prompted groups and individuals nationwide, like the Greensboro Four of the Woolworth Sit-ins, to launch sit-ins and protests around the nation.
It was not until the Lyndon Johnson Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed that the United States began its long slow healing process that is still in progress today.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lZx7qLwDtKk?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="480" height="360"></iframe>
Justin Morrill's first Land Grant College Act, passed in 1862, provided funding for public higher educational institutions through public land sales, but did not specify that the funding exclude black higher education. With this matter on the table, black higher education was opened to debate, causing a direct threat the Jim Crow laws. The exact language of Morrill's act was: "An act donating public lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and mechanic arts." Some observers say Justin Morrill was obsessed with educating America because he was not able to attend college due to his family's poverty. He designed the Land Grant College Acts to make it possible for poor students in the same position he had experienced to attain higher education without bankrupting the family. By today's standards, it could include not being strapped with student loans too high to pay.
Under the Jim Crow laws of former Confederate states, which excluded former slaves from higher education, white only schools were established under the Justin Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862. In an effort to guarantee higher education for the former slave population, Morrill struggled with racist legislators to pass a new law, The Land Grant College Act of1890. This new Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1890 prohibited former Confederate states from hiding behind the Justin Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862 to use federal land sales for white only schools.
The Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1890 prohibited former Confederate states from claiming separate but equal colleges for different races, unless they divided those revenues from public federal land sales. Public college education for former slaves must be included in an appropriate division of auction money earned from the sale of public land. If former Confederate states operating under Jim Crow laws did not comply with the new Morrill Act, they would lose federal land grant college funding or allow all students, regardless of color, to attend their formerly segregated schools.
The direct threat to Jim Crow laws in former Confederate states caused them all to go scrambling to build colleges for black students. However, most of the colleges for black students continued to be underfunded and unequal to white schools for decades to come. As long as possible former Confederate states avoided equitable division of funds derived from public land sales.
The 1890 Land Grant College Act established a legal framework that satisfied Morrill's law and the separate but equal requirements of the former Confederate South. This new legislation provided education for former slaves, although not comparable, that the first Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862 had provided for white students only.
By the 1896, Jim Crow laws were a way of life in the United States. Jim Crow laws, instituted during slavery, were later sanctioned by the Supreme Court Decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, a case involving an African American man suing the railroad on the claim of discrimination because he was prevented from using his first-class train ticket. He lost. African Americans lost. Education lost. And the nation lost in more areas than the former Confederate South.However, in 1958, Clara Luper (left) led the first sit-in to be publicized in U.S. history. As a result of the publicity of her protest, she integrated the Jim Crow Katz Drugstore lunch counter in Oklahoma City and motivated similar racial protests to integrate other Jim Crow facilities around the state, contributing to the integration of Oklahoma. The publicity generated by Luper's achievement prompted groups and individuals nationwide, like the Greensboro Four of the Woolworth Sit-ins, to launch sit-ins and protests around the nation.
It was not until the Lyndon Johnson Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed that the United States began its long slow healing process that is still in progress today.
<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lZx7qLwDtKk?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="480" height="360"></iframe>
