Two years after the Civil War ended, Howard University was founded in 1867, and generations have called it the Mecca of historically Black colleges.
Howard was chartered by Congress in November 1867, originally proposed as a theological seminary to train Black ministers, but almost immediately reconceived as a comprehensive university. It was named for General Oliver O. Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. From the beginning, Howard admitted students of all races and both sexes — radical positions for 1867.
The law school, established in 1869, became one of the most significant institutions in American legal history. Thurgood Marshall earned his law degree here in 1933 after being rejected from the University of Maryland Law School because of his race. He went on to argue Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954, winning the case that declared school segregation unconstitutional. He later became the first Black Justice of the Supreme Court.
Howard's alumni also include Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Kamala Harris, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ossie Davis, and Roberta Flack. The university produced more Black doctors and dentists than any other institution in the country for most of the twentieth century.
The campus sits at the top of a hill in the Shaw neighborhood, looking south toward the Capitol. During the Civil War, Freedmen's Bureau camps occupied this area. Thousands of formerly enslaved people arrived in Washington seeking freedom, shelter, and a new life. Howard University rose in the aftermath of that migration.