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If you ask just about anyone at Howard University what\u2019s the other name for their school, they will readily tell you: \u201cThe Mecca.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name has been extolled by former students, such as acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote in his 2015 book \u201cBetween the World and Me<\/a>\u201d that his \u201conly Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University.\u201d<\/p>\n But ask anyone in the Howard community how and when the school came to be known as The Mecca \u2013 a question I\u2019ve been researching for the past year \u2013 and blank stares are mostly the response.<\/p>\n In a 2019 article, The New York Times tried to find the origins of\u00a0the use of the term<\/a>\u00a0for Howard when U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris,\u00a0one of the school\u2019s most well-known alumnae<\/a>, was still a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.<\/p>\n Greg Carr, an\u00a0associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University<\/a>, told the newspaper that the term \u201cemerged after the Civil Rights Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the wake of the death of Malcolm X and in the spirit of the Black Power movement, students began to informally refer to the campus as \u2018The Mecca of black education,\u2019\u201d\u00a0wrote Bianca Ladipo<\/a>.<\/p>\n It seemed intriguing to me as a\u00a0longtime admirer of Malcolm X<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and also as one who made the pilgrimage to the original Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as\u00a0Malcolm famously did in 1964<\/a>. Still, as a\u00a0veteran education writer<\/a>\u00a0with an\u00a0extensive history<\/a>\u00a0of covering\u00a0historically Black colleges and universities<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including Howard<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 I decided to dig deeper. My efforts were not in vain.<\/p>\n Using Howard University\u2019s\u00a0digital archives<\/a>, I discovered that one of the earliest documented references to \u201cThe Mecca\u201d is found in the Feb. 26, 1909, edition of the\u00a0Howard University Journal<\/a>, a student-run publication. This was \u2013 contrary to what The New York Times said about the term emerging after the death of Malcolm X in 1965 \u2013 nearly 15 years before he was even born.<\/p>\n My finding comes at a time when Howard, located in Washington, D.C., is entering a new era. Its new president, Ben Vinson III, a\u00a0leading scholar on the history of the African diaspora<\/a>, took the helm at the\u00a0storied university<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Sept. 1, 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thanks to a\u00a0five-year, US$90 million Department of Defense contract<\/a>, the school recently became the\u00a0first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon to conduct research in military technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n The university is also\u00a0on a quest to attain R-1 status<\/a>. R-1 is a classification level reserved for universities that grant doctoral degrees and also have\u00a0\u201cvery high research activity.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Named after one of its founders<\/a>, Union general and\u00a0Civil War hero<\/a>\u00a0Oliver Otis Howard, the school opened in 1867 and was\u00a0established through an act of Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n Its founders\u00a0envisioned Howard<\/a>\u00a0as a school for educating and training Black physicians, teachers and ministers from the nearly 4 million newly freed slaves.<\/p>\n Malik Castro-DeVarona<\/a>, a political science major and a former president of the Howard University Chess Club, unwittingly helped me discover how the school came to be known as \u201cThe Mecca.\u201d He suggested that I look in the\u00a0digital archive for The Hilltop<\/a>, the campus newspaper\u00a0co-founded in 1924<\/a>\u00a0by novelist\u00a0Zora Neale Hurston<\/a>.<\/p>\n In my online search, I discovered a different digital archive:\u00a0Digital Howard<\/a>. There, I did a simple search for the term \u201cMecca\u201d and got\u00a0more than 400 results<\/a>, including the one from 1909.<\/p>\n Through my research, I discovered that over the years \u201cThe Mecca\u201d has been used in different ways. It is most often meant to preserve Howard\u2019s reputation as a beacon of Black thought.<\/p>\n That first reference from February 1909 came in an article written by J.A. Mitchell, a student who referred to Howard as a potential Mecca for young Black students. Specifically, Mitchell wrote: \u201cHoward indeed bids well to become the Mecca, toward which the eyes of our youth will instinctively turn,\u201d Mitchell wrote in the\u00a0Howard University Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact,\u201d Mitchell continued, \u201cit seems as if the present outlook already forecasts a new era in the history of our school and tells of a future Howard, situated on a hill overlooking the national capital, that is second to no institution of its kind.\u201d<\/p>\n That statement was prophetic. In its 2022 rankings, U.S. News and World Report ranked Howard as\u00a0No. 2 among historically Black colleges and universities<\/a>, making Howard second only to Spelman College, an HBCU for women, located in Atlanta, according to the magazine.<\/p>\n Mitchell\u2019s reference was not the only one. A few years later, in a\u00a01913 edition of the Howard University Journal<\/a>, an article stated:<\/p>\n \u201cHoward is a strategic institution. She is “The Mecca\u201d of higher education attended in main by Negro youths. \u2026 She commands the interest of multitudes of people throughout the land and gives impetus to the life of thousands of alumni and alumnae. Again, she nurtures fifteen hundred select youths of a race.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n Anyone familiar with the culture at Howard knows there\u2019s a\u00a0long-standing rivalry<\/a>\u00a0between Howard University and Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, over which school is \u2036the real HU.<\/a>\u201d My research shows there might have once been a debate over which school is \u201cThe Mecca\u201d as well.<\/p>\n When Booker T. Washington\u00a0arrived at Hampton in 1872<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 five years after Howard University was\u00a0founded in 1867<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Hampton, Virginia, was known as the \u201cMecca of the ambitious colored youth of the dismantled South<\/a>,\u201d according to a 1910 Howard manuscript titled \u201cA Ride with Booker T. Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Hampton isn\u2019t the only U.S. city to be known as a Black Mecca.<\/p>\n As noted in a\u00a01925 edition of \u201cThe Crisis\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the NAACP magazine\u00a0founded in 1910<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0W.E.B. DuBois<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Washington, D.C., was \u201cregarded as the Mecca of the American Negro, for here he is under the wing of the eagle and can\u2019t be made the victim of hostile legislation or rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Around the same time,\u00a0Alain Locke<\/a>, who taught English and philosophy at Howard in the early 1910s and started the school\u2019s philosophy department, proclaimed Harlem as the \u201cMecca of the new Negro<\/a>.\u201d Locke is also known as the\u00a0\u201cdean of the Harlem Renaissance.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The point is this idea of a Black Mecca was constantly shifting and\u00a0continues to shift to this day<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite archival records that show Howard was called The Mecca as early as 1909, other details have yet to be discovered. Perhaps under the leadership of President Vinson, a\u00a0champion of digital scholarship<\/a>, Howard students and scholars can continue to research how Howard came to be known as The Mecca.<\/p>\n Doing so would be a fitting tribute to one of Howard\u2019s most illustrious deans, Carter G. Woodson.<\/p>\n Hailed as the \u201cfather of Black history,<\/a>\u201d Woodson launched\u00a0Negro History Week<\/a>\u00a0in 1926. That\u00a0paved the way<\/a>\u00a0for what today is known as\u00a0Black History Month<\/a>.<\/p>\nA new era<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Going way back<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The meaning of \u2018The Mecca\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A different Mecca?<\/h4>\n
The Mecca of the future<\/strong><\/h4>\n