Oklahoma Journeys

Week of February 16, 2008

Bill passed allowing for the creation of a black college (Langston) February 26, 1916

It’s a celebration of education this week on Oklahoma Journeys. Today it seems that for most of us the existence of colleges and universities is taken for granted. We just expect such institutions to be there for us. For much of the population of early day Oklahoma Territory, however, there was no option for higher education. That’s the story on this week’s edition of Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma Historical Society.

From the Oklahoma Historical Society, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.

This week we take a look at the beginnings of the Colored Agricultural and Normal School, or as we know it today, Langston University. Almost with the opening of the first land run, plans were made to create institutions of higher learning in Oklahoma Territory. Oklahoma A & M in Stillwater, followed by the University of Oklahoma as well as a number of private schools, opened shortly after territorial settlement began. By 1892, however, there was still no higher education option for the African American community. State law prohibited blacks and whites from attending the same school facilities; therefore, in order to comply with the very laws that they had created, it would be necessary for the legislature to provide funds to build a completely separate facility for those black citizens wanting to continue their education past high school.

It was in this week of 1896 that the state legislature, at the request of influential blacks within the state, approved the necessary funding for the construction of a black institution of higher learning at Langston, Oklahoma Territory. However, stated the legislature, the land would have to be paid for by the citizens. For one year the residents of Langston and surrounding communities held bake sales, pie suppers, auctions and other events with all of the proceeds going towards the purchase of the land for their new college. By 1898 the land was purchased and construction had begun.

Prior to completing the actual structure, classes for the new school were held in a Presbyterian Church. According to documents provided by the school, the purpose of the instruction was to instruct male and female colored persons in the art of teaching common and higher education in the agricultural, mechanical and industrial arts. The first president of the institution, Dr. Inman Page, the son of a former slave, expanded the original eighty acres into one hundred sixty, and the school continues to grow and thrive today. By 1941 the name was officially changed to Langston University. Both the town and the school derive their name from Virginian John Mercer Langston, a black proponent of higher education active during the late 19th century.

You can learn more about black education in the territory and the early days of the state of Oklahoma by visiting the Oklahoma History Center, on NE 23rd and Lincoln Blvd in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma Historical Society, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.