Julia+Boyer

My commercial is supporting Caflin Universtiy, which was one of the first colleges for African Americans after the Morril Acts.

Summary: Justin Smith Morrill created the Morrill Act that supplied a land grant for schools that taught agriculture, home economy and mechanical arts. His vision was that all people from all social classes had a chance at his kind of education. Unfortunately, this didn’t work in the way he wanted. Abraham Lincoln signed the original Morrill Act in 1862. The act had a separation of race but it provided equal schools for blacks that only Mississippi and Kentucky made. The second act allowed African Americans to join the white schools. Claflin University, which was later changed to South Carolina University was the first university made in response to the Morrill Act in 1862. Black leaders in the legislature requested that the college allowed black students to attend. Many of the white students and faculty left due to the fact that they didn’t want to go to school with African Americans.

Relating to liberty and equlity: Without this step in educational reform, African Americans would not have gotten an equal education. The original Morrill acts were a demonstration of inequality; blacks were excluded from the new schools. There was also an issue with ‘separate but equal’, which is now unconstitutional. The fist Morrill act was also unconstitutional because it created a ‘suspect class’. Suspect classes are groups of people that are set apart and are subject of discrimination. With help from blacks in the legislature, African Americans received the liberty to go to new and improved schools where they were prepared for jobs equal to whites. Click here for the commercial.