The Art Gallery, Museum

One salient aspect of the Black college is its historical existence as a financially marginal class of institutions. Its chronically depressed fiscal condition, and its proclivity to crises that are often recurring, and serious, are known to the concerned segments of American society, and those intimately involved with the destiny of the historically Negro college (HNC). 1 William J. Trent, Jr. concisely underscores this condition-The Negro colleges were born in crisis. They have existed on the edge of poverty since their beginning.2 The fiscal status of the HNC is one of the conditioning agents that undergird many of its problems, and the eventual consequences of such problems. It is unrealistic to ignore this as part of a context in which such colleges must of necessity discharge their central, supportive, and peripheral functions. It is further understood that this generalized subsistence level at which practically all such colleges must exist, does establish a definitive homogeneity of shared experiences in an otherwise diverse spectrum of institutions. Crises, inclusive of hardships rooted in financial deprivation and other societal forces, have been the handmaidens that have wrought, and imposed a system of constraints that spawned inadequate facilities, understaffing, and the uncertainty that threatens almost any attempt to effect a realistic projection of plans for future

Art · Sociology · Visual arts · Art Education and Development · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Race, History, and American Society

• Reassessing the Vocational Origins of Hampton University and Celebrating a Singular History of Arts Engagement

  John S Welch•The Public Historian•2018

  Add to list

• The Historic Roles of Black American Artists

  Harold G Cureau•The Black Scholar•1977

  Add to list