A Canary in the Coal Mine: Lewis McMillan and Black Colleges during the Age of Jim Crow

Through an examination of the life and political work of Lewis Kennedy McMillan, a Black professor during the first half of the twentieth century, this article demonstrates some of the issues and challenges of Black faculty and Black institutions of higher education prior to the Civil Rights Era. In examining McMillan’s activism within the professoriate, I intervene in scholarly conversations about the history of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Most of the extant literature on HBCUs focuses on decades-long ideological clashes over the appropriate types of education for Black students, student unrest stemming from rigid codes of conduct in the early twentieth century, or leadership. There are a few book-length studies that have looked at the political work of HBCU students both on and off campus throughout the twentieth century. Lewis’s activism and advocacy provide insight into the ways in which HBCU faculty led by example and inspired their students to challenge notions of Black inferiority.