Prairie View A&M University

Overview

Prairie View A&M University is a public historically Black land-grant university in Prairie View, Texas, the oldest public HBCU in Texas and the second-oldest public institution of higher learning in the state — also the largest HBCU in Texas and the third-largest in the country. It was established as Alta Vista Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth by the Sixteenth Texas Legislature on April 19, 1879, under Article 7 of the Texas Constitution of 1876, near the end of Reconstruction. Its creation was championed by State Senators Matthew Gaines and Walter Moses Burton and State Representative William H. Holland — all formerly enslaved men who had become leading political figures — who drafted the legislation establishing the state-supported agricultural and mechanical college.

From Normal College to A&M University

The Texas Constitution of 1876 required that “separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children,” and the legislation that followed made Prairie View the first state-supported institution of higher learning for African Americans in Texas. The school changed names several times over the 20th century — Prairie View University in 1945, Prairie View A&M College of Texas in 1947, and finally Prairie View Agricultural & Mechanical University in 1973 — each renaming reflecting an expansion of the courses and degrees it was authorized to offer.