ABSTRACT
Sociologists recognized the special position of Negroes by describing them as a "caste" rather than a "class." The Negro colleges' special handicaps in this regard derive from the unhappy but seemingly inescapable burden of Southern history which the Negro colleges necessarily carry into the modern world. The first Negro colleges opened in the North before the Civil War, though none granted a B.A. until after 1865. Except for Texas Southern, the only additions to the Negro public sector since World War II have been a handful of marginal two-year colleges, mostly in Florida. Like other oppressed American minorities, Southern Negroes evidently accepted the basic legitimacy of the social system under which they lived, and looked up to the men who stood at the top of this order. The basic premise behind this approach is that in the foreseeable future Southern Negroes will not get the kinds of help they need from local institutions directly subservient to local whites.
