 It was a form of civic participation, and it was a form of freedom for African Americans. It was a form of freedom for African Americans. It was a form of freedom for African Americans. It was a form of civic participation, self-creation, self-actualization, and personal aspiration. Education had a value in and of itself. Black colleges start in a whole variety of ways, right? They start in the basements of churches. They start in one-room classrooms. They start in sort of abandoned structures that had been left over from the war. They start through the Government's Freedmen's Bureau with help from the American Missionary Association, with help from the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the AME Zion Church and Philanthropists. In the midst of this low point in terms of racial violence, these institutions become protective spaces. They're using these spaces to educate, but also to empower those same young black people to see themselves as a wave of young folks who are going to begin to call out America's hypocrisy. Black colleges understand the trauma, the disinvestment that their students arrive on campus with, and they see it as part of their mission to heal and rearrange the thinking that tells us that we cannot be the best and that we are not among the best. Thank you.