University in Washington, D.C., the most prominent African American educational institution in the U.S. It is financially supported by the U.S. government but is privately controlled.
Though open to students of any ethnicity, it was founded (1867) with a special obligation to educate African American students. It has a college of liberal arts, a graduate school of arts and sciences, and schools or colleges of business and public administration, engineering, human ecology, medicine, dentistry, and law, among others. Its library is the leading research library on African American history.