Clark Atlanta University

History

Atlanta University was founded in 1865 by the American Missionary Association, initially to educate freedpeople in Atlanta in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. By the 1870s it had developed into a college offering full baccalaureate programs. In 1929 it was reorganized as a graduate institution, becoming the first university in the United States to offer graduate degrees to African Americans.

Clark College was founded in 1869 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, also in Atlanta, as a liberal arts institution. For decades, Atlanta University and Clark College operated as sister institutions within the broader Atlanta University Center Consortium — a network that also includes Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, and the Interdenominational Theological Center.

W.E.B. Du Bois served on the Atlanta University faculty from 1897 to 1910 and again from 1934 to 1944. During his first tenure he conducted the Atlanta University Studies — a series of empirical sociological investigations into the conditions of Black American life that represented the most systematic social science research on the subject conducted up to that point.

The 1988 consolidation of Clark and Atlanta University created Clark Atlanta University, which combined the liberal arts tradition of Clark with the graduate research mission of Atlanta University. The consolidated institution offers programs from the baccalaureate to the doctoral level across arts, sciences, business, and social work.

Under George T. French Jr., who became the university’s fifth president in 2019, Clark Atlanta has remained the largest private HBCU in Georgia; as of the Spring 2026 census it enrolled 4,198 students — 3,492 undergraduates and 706 graduate students — a 3.1% increase over the prior year. The institution has drawn extraordinary philanthropic support during this period: a $15 million unrestricted gift from MacKenzie Scott in 2020, followed in November 2025 by an additional $38 million from Scott — the single largest gift in the university’s history. CAU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and continues to operate as the only doctoral-granting HBCU in the state. In U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 rankings, Clark Atlanta placed No. 16 among HBCUs nationally.

W.E.B. Du Bois and the Atlanta University Studies

From 1896 to 1914, W.E.B. Du Bois organized a series of annual conferences at Atlanta University and published their findings as the Atlanta University Studies — a set of sixteen monographs examining Black mortality, crime, education, business, and social organization through rigorous empirical methods. Du Bois's purpose was explicit: to replace the racial mythology that passed for social science with actual data. The studies are now recognized as foundational texts of American sociology. Du Bois returned to Atlanta University in 1934 after his break with the NAACP, remaining until 1944.

Notable Alumni

A representative selection. Alumni records are verified against institutional and published sources. Unverified entries are flagged explicitly — we do not fabricate records.

Source notes: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and Atlanta University Studies series (1896–1914); Clark Atlanta University institutional archives; David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race (1993).