Stand and Prosper is the first authoritative history in decades of black colleges and universities in America. It tells the story of educational institutions that offered, and continue to offer, African Americans a unique opportunity to transcend the legacy of slavery while also bearing its burden. Henry Drewry and Humphrey Doermann present an up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of their past, present, and possible future. Black colleges fully got off the ground only after the Civil War--more than two centuries after higher education formally began in British North America. Despite horrendous obstacles, they survived and even proliferated until well past the mid-twentieth century. As the authors show, however, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education brought them to a crucial juncture. While validating the rights of blacks to pursue opportunities outside racial and class lines, it drew the future of these institutions into doubt. By the mid-1970s black colleges competed with other colleges for black students--a welcome expansion of choices for African-American youth but a huge recruitment challenge for black colleges. The book gradually narrows its focus from a general history to a look at the development of forty-five private black colleges in recent decades. It describes their varied responses to the changes of the last half-century and documents their influence in the development of the black middle class. The authors underscore the vital importance of government in supporting these institutions, from the Freedman's Bureau during Reconstruction to federal aid in our own time. Stand and Prosper offers a fascinating portrait of the distinctive place black colleges and universities have occupied in American history as crucibles of black culture, and of the formidable obstacles they must surmount if they are to continue fulfilling this important role.

This study discussses the ways in which Black colleges can be of help to non-Blacks (including white students) who can benefit from the unique kind of education offered by such schools. It compares the culture of black colleges and universities a generation ago with those that exist today, and makes projections into the future based on a comprehensive review of professional literature and an analysis of the management skills of contemporary black college leaders.

In December 2008, Georgia state senator Seth Harp ignited controversy when he proposed merging two historically Black colleges with nearby predominantly white colleges to save money. Less than a year later, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour sought to unite Mississippi's three predominantly Black colleges. These efforts kindled renewed interest in historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the nation and the globe. In this study, HBCU officials and faculty attempt to identify the challenges that HBCUs face, explore the historic origin of HBCU management systems, and identify models of success that will improve the long-term viability of the HBCU. By analyzing HBCUs within a larger framework of American higher education and the cultural context in which HBCUs operate, these essays introduce a new paradigm in the quest to ensure that HBCUs continue to play an important role in the education of Americans of all races.