Clark Atlanta Panthers

Clark Atlanta University is rooted in a powerful network of HBCU history that helped shape Black education after the Civil War. In 1867, Atlanta University was chartered with the support of General Oliver Otis Howard, who also founded Howard University that same year.

That same moment in history connected multiple institutions that would become pillars of Black excellence. Howard appointed William J. White as an educational agent for the Freedmen’s Bureau in January 1867. White was also the half-brother of James Tate, founder of the Augusta Institute—an institution that would later become Morehouse College.