A National School to Meet a National Need
On December 13, 1928, the United States Congress amended Section 8 of Howard University’s Act of Incorporation to include the authorization of the institution's annual appropriations. Initially established under Howard’s first Black president, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, these appropriations have continued to aid in the construction, development, improvement, and maintenance of the University for nearly 95 years.
At the start of his 34-year tenure, President Johnson prioritized a resolution concerning the financial standing of the University. At the time, the University would receive subsidies for annual appeals to Congress, ranging from $10,000 in 1879 to $200,000 in 1926. According to the Journal for Blacks in Higher Education, "These grants were never adequate to enable the school to operate at a level commensurate with the standards of a full-fledged university. In the absence of statutory authority for the appropriations, the fiscal health of the university would remain tenuous unless the situation changed."