morrill act

On October 1, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) celebrated our tenth anniversary. Ten years ago, we replaced the former Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service when Congress established NIFA through the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-246, enacted June 18, 2008, also known as the 2008 Farm Bill). As USDA’s extramural research funding agency, NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education, and Extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.

The author of the Act that created land-grant colleges, Congressman Justin Smith Morrill of Strafford, Vermont, had been disappointed that such educational institutions were out of reach for African-Americans. Almost 30 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act of 1862, the Second Morrill Act, creating our nation’s historically black land-grant colleges, was successfully shepherded through Congress by then Senator Morrill and signed into law on Aug. 30, 1890.

We have schools to teach the art of manslaying… Shall we not have schools to teach men the way to feed, clothe, and enlighten the brotherhood of man? - Justin Smith Morrill, April 20, 1858

By 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, Justin Smith Morrill, the representative from Vermont, with little formal education beyond 8^th grade level, had accomplished his vision of having schools teach the way to feed, clothe, and enlighten.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

As we look back on 2015, NIFA is also celebrating the partnership we have developed with the nation’s land-grant universities (LGUs), who play a critical role teaching students to meet the high quality, innovative research needs that are vital to the production of our country’s food, fuel, and fiber. USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture provides support to historically black colleges and universities that were designated at as LGUs in the Second Morrill Act in 1890.  Grants to these 1890 universities support research, extension, and teaching in the food and agricultural sciences by building the institutional capacities of these schools.  Looking back on 2015, here are 5 highlights.

The Second Morrill Act of 1890 was enacted by Congress to support states in establishing the 1890 Land-Grant Universities (LGUs) –Historically Black Colleges and Universities which are committed to providing educational opportunity through scientific research and extension programs. 

There are currently nineteen 1890 LGUs across eighteen states, and each continues to cultivate leadership in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and agriculture to this day.

Ever since their inception 125 years ago with passage of the Second Morrill Act, 1890 land-grant universities (LGU) have had a major impact on the lives of students in 18 states in the field of food and agricultural science.  The legislation was created to increase the number of minorities studying agriculture, food, natural resource sciences and the related disciplines.

One alumnus of the 1890 LGU educational system has a passion for giving back, and he has created a program that provides students access to educational tools that weren’t accessible before.

Booker T. Washington.  George Washington Carver.  Educators par excellence.  Pioneers in food and agricultural scientific research. Dedicated their lives to helping "lift the veil of ignorance" by bringing knowledge to African-Americans and others with limited resources.

For 125 years, since passage of the Second Morrill Act on Aug. 30, 1890, which created a "broader education for the American people in the arts of peace, and especially in agriculture and mechanics arts," the legacy of innovations has been sustained.

July in America.  It is summer time and school’s out. It is about vacations and maybe a trip to the beach. It is Independence Day—the 4^th of July—and parades and fireworks.  It is about barbecues, hotdogs, and burgers. 

2015 marks America’s 239^th birthday.

July is also the month for another important birthday in America—passage of the Morrill Act on July 2, 1862, which established the land-grant university system, ensuring access to education for all people.

Congress enacted the Second Morrill Act, creating a group of African-American land-grant universities, in the year 1890.  Today – 125 years later – USDA maintains a close, supportive and cooperative relation with these 19 schools located in 18 states that are commonly known as “1890 Universities.”  

This morning in a ceremony in his office, Secretary Vilsack signed an agreement extending USDA’s commitment to the 1890 Universities for another five years. Also signing the agreement was Dr. Juliette Bell, President of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), acting on behalf of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ (APLU) Council of 1890 Universities.  Secretary Vilsack spoke of the importance of extending the partnership between these universities and USDA, saying it was “more important than ever to train the next generation of policy makers, researchers and educators in the food and agricultural sciences.”

Like many city kids growing up in Richmond, Va., Carolyn Brooks didn’t know much about agriculture and had never heard of 4-H. That changed quickly, however, as she was the first in her family to graduate from college—earning a B.S. and then a M.S. in biology from one of the foremost agricultural schools in the country, Tuskegee University, where she said, many people “helped me, guided me, and cared about my success.”

Brooks said that before moving to Tuskegee, Ala., she “knew nothing about the South. I had never been in that kind of environment – in a predominantly black community.”