On this day, Tougaloo College was established in Tougaloo, Mississippi, by the American Missionary Association. It became a center for African American higher education and civil rights activism.

The other institutions mentioned were also founded in the 19th century but on different dates:

• Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University) – Founded in 1869 in Atlanta, Georgia, by the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

• Claflin University – Founded in 1869, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, by Methodist missionaries for the education of freed slaves.

• Dillard University – Formed much later in 1930 through the merger of two older institutions: Straight College (founded in 1869) and New Orleans University (founded in 1869), both in New Orleans.