Morgan State University

History

The Centenary Biblical Institute was founded in 1867 by the Methodist Episcopal Church to train Black ministers for service in post-Civil War Maryland and the broader South. It was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honor of Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, a Methodist bishop who donated land and funding for the institution's development. The name honored his contributions to the institution's early survival.

Morgan College became a state institution in 1939, when the state of Maryland purchased the college to address the absence of a public institution of higher education for Black Marylanders in the Baltimore metropolitan area. The purchase reflected political pressure rather than genuine commitment — Maryland's public university system remained racially segregated until the 1950s, and Morgan received significantly less state funding than the University of Maryland.

Morgan State achieved university status in 1975. Its growth in the latter half of the twentieth century — adding doctoral programs, a law school partnership, and research centers — transformed it from a teaching college into a research institution. The 2019 state designation as Maryland's Preeminent Public Urban Research University was accompanied by increased funding commitments and was part of the broader conversation about HBCU funding equity that culminated in the 2021 Maryland settlement.

Morgan State's School of Architecture and Planning, founded in 1993, is one of the few architecture schools at an HBCU and has been recognized for its work on urban design, community development, and historically Black neighborhoods. Its journalism school has produced significant numbers of Black journalists for Baltimore media markets.

Under President David K. Wilson, who has led the institution since 2010, Morgan has continued to grow against the national trend of HBCU and broader higher-education enrollment decline. In the 2025–26 academic year it conferred 1,876 degrees — the largest annual graduation total in school history, a 24 percent year-over-year increase in spring degree earners — and fall 2025 enrollment surpassed 11,500 students, a fifth consecutive record year — and it holds the Carnegie Foundation's R2 designation for high research activity, with record research awards and roughly $1.5 billion in capital investment over the past decade. For fall 2026, Morgan projected enrollment above 12,000 — which would mark a sixth consecutive record year — drawn from nearly 40,000 applications, and in 2026 the Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaffirmed the university’s accreditation for a further seven years. Forbes ranked Morgan among the nation’s top four public HBCUs; the university launched a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence and continued construction of a new Science and Research Center.

Baltimore's Anchor Institution

Morgan State's significance is inseparable from its place in Baltimore — a city where 62 percent of the population is Black and where racial inequalities in wealth, health, housing, and policing are among the most severe in the country. The university serves as an economic anchor in northeast Baltimore, employing thousands of city residents and attracting research funding to a neighborhood that has otherwise experienced disinvestment. More concretely: Morgan State graduates Baltimore. A disproportionate share of Baltimore's Black teachers, social workers, engineers, and civic officials hold Morgan degrees. The university's 2019 designation as Maryland's preeminent urban research university was, in part, an acknowledgment of this role.

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: Morgan State University institutional archives; Maryland State Archives records; Maryland General Assembly, Acts 1939 and 2019; NAACP v. State of Maryland settlement, 2021.