by Laura Glesby
A sketch of what an HBCU satellite could look like at SCSU. Credit: PIRIE Associates Architects
Nearly two centuries after racist city leaders closed the door on the prospect of a Black college in New Haven, the city is working to open that door once again.
On Monday evening, the Board of Alders approved a proposal to apply for state funding to begin early-stage plans to found a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) satellite campus in New Haven.
The Connecticut Historically Black College & University Alumni Network and the Elicker Administration are applying for a state Community Investment Fund (CIF) grant to fund this planning process.
They are seeking $250,000 from CIF, which would be matched with $50,000 in city dollars, to fund a feasibility study, community engagement process, and additional planning for the proposed HBCU. About $55,000 of those funds would be used in the meantime to support college tours and fairs to connect current New Haven students to HBCU opportunities, according to the proposal.
The grant application follows efforts led by the late Beaver Hills Alder Tom Ficklin and City Historian Michael Morand to bring about a public reckoning with the first time such a college was proposed for New Haven.
In 1831, abolitionists had attempted to found the nation’s first higher education institution for Black men in New Haven. But both the city and the state of Connecticut blocked the plan; the state passed a law in 1883 prohibiting Black people from out of state from attaining an education in Connecticut.
According to the Yale and Slavery Project, the 1831 mayoral committee concluded that the proposed Black college was an “unwarrantable and dangerous interference with the internal concerns of other States” — in other words, an affront to other states’ ongoing enslavement of African Americans.
The committee also wrote that Black college would be “incompatible with the prosperity, if not the existence of the present institutions of learning” — such as Yale, whose alumni were pivotal opponents of the proposed college.
Ficklin had proposed a formal city apology for its prevention of the 1831 Black College. But he passed away, in October 2024, before alders approved the resolution. The apology has not since been further pursued.
Meanwhile, the city and the Connecticut HBCU Alumni Network saw an opportunity in a portion of Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU)’s campus.
Credit: City of New Haven
They are proposing for SCSU to host an HBCU “satellite campus” with “culturally affirming, workforce-aligned programs” focused particularly on science, health, and technology, according to a presentation.
Economic Development Officer Malachi Bridges, a key planner on the proposal so far, explained that the HBCU would not likely be a new, independent institution due to federal law. “The definition of HBCU is tied to a federal statute… [which] defines it as a school established before 1964,” Bridges said.
According to Bridges, the city and the HBCU alumni network are imagining a New Haven-based “satellite campus” of an existing HBCU elsewhere in the country, with unique connections to New Haven’s other higher ed institutions.
They envision opportunities for students at that college to be linked to SCSU with the ability to enroll in courses across numerous local higher education institutions — potentially Yale, Quinnipiac, UConn, Gateway, the University of New Haven, and Albertus Magnus. The program would be focused on STEM fields including biotech, health care, quantum, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing.
An early sketch of their vision involves new research and lab buildings at Southern, creating indoor and outdoor hubs for the HBCU students, and founding an Ethnic Culture Center and Museum on campus, potentially replacing some of the parking lots by Crescent Street.
Bridges pitched the proposal to the alders’ Education Committee in April as a way to both honor the historic movement for a Black college in New Haven and make local economic opportunities in the city’s fastest-growing sectors more accessible to Black residents. “People feel kind of locked out of opportunities,” he said in April.
“After we acknowledge the history, after we apologize for it… This is one potential solution,” said Bridges.
In advance of the Education Committee’s April 22 public hearing on the matter, several members of the public wrote in with testimony in support. Project backers included John Taylor, the founding principal of the local charter school Booker T. Washington Academy.
“Now is the time for action,” Taylor wrote. “Let us challenge ourselves to not only dream of an HBCU but to work tirelessly until it stands proudly in our city.”
On Monday evening, Beaver Hills Alder and Education Committee Chair Gary Hogan spoke in support of the proposal.
“This will turn the historical 1831 College” reckoning “into a forward-thinking avenue for education, careers, and wealth management,” Hogan said. He noted that there are no remaining HBCUs left in New England.
Downtown/Yale Alder Elias Theodore, a Wilbur Cross High School alum, added, “I know I went to high school with so many people who would have loved to go to an HBCU, but they have family” or other reasons they needed to go to school closer to home. An HBCU would “bring so much vibrancy and joy to New Haven,” Theodore said.
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison echoed the support as an alum of an HBCU.
“There is something about that HBCU, that education, that connection,” which makes for a life-changing learning environment, she said.
“The idea came first here in New Haven,” before anywhere else in the country, “but it was denied,” Morrison said.
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