HOWARD UNIVERSITY

in Washington, D.C., predominantly black university founded in 1867 and named for General Oliver Otis Howard (q.v.), head of the post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau, who influenced Congress to appropriate funds for the school. The university is financially supported by the U.S. government but is privately controlled. Although Howard University has always been open to students of any race, colour, or creed, it was founded with a special obligation to provide advanced studies for blacks. Its library is the leading research library on black American history. The university has a college of liberal arts, a graduate school of arts and sciences, and schools or colleges of business and public administration, engineering, communications, human ecology, medicine, allied health services, dentistry, and law, among others. Although the student body at one time was virtually all black, white students began attending after World War II, especially in the graduate schools. Many of Howard's graduates advanced to leadership positions in education, social reform, and government. Among the most prominent were the U.S. senator Edward William Brooke of Massachusetts; sociologist E. Franklin Frazier; playwright Imamu Baraka (LeRoi Jones); and the statesman Ralph Bunche, who established the school's political science department.