HBCU History: The breakup of the CIAA and creation of the MEAC

The creation of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) by seven HBCU programs in 1970 marked a pivotal moment in the quest for equity, visibility, and competitive excellence in college sports. These institutions—North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, Morgan State, Howard University, Delaware State, Maryland-Eastern Shore, and South Carolina State—broke away from the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) (save for SC State), the nation’s oldest and most celebrated HBCU conferences. Their decision reflected deep institutional and athletic ambitions but also highlighted the broader sociopolitical challenges of the era.

The decision to leave the CIAA was not made lightly, and it took nearly 18 months to complete. For decades, the CIAA had been a cornerstone of HBCU sports, fostering legendary athletes like Earl Monroe, Sam Jones etc. and coaches like Clarence “Big House” Gaines, John McLendon and Edward P. Hurt . However, by the late 1960s, cracks began to show in the conference’s structure. The CIAA had ballooned to 18 member schools by the end of the decade making scheduling and governance increasingly difficult.

“There were just too many variables between the schools in the CIAA,” explained Dr. LeRoy Walker, then president of North Carolina Central and a key architect of the MEAC. “Variables in student body size, in financial support for athletics, and in the pursuit of excellence.”

The larger, better-resourced HBCUs like North Carolina A&T and Morgan State sought to align themselves with schools of similar size and ambition. These universities felt stifled within a conference where disparities in resources and priorities often led to compromises that they felt hindered athletic and academic growth.

As one MEAC official noted, “The new conference will require participation in eight sports, round-robin scheduling, freshman programs, and NCAA membership. We expect to be granted university division status.”

This ambition to compete at the highest collegiate level was a defining feature of the MEAC’s formation.

The CIAA, established in 1912, was a trailblazer in Black college sports. Its annual basketball tournament drew massive crowds and served as a cultural touchstone for HBCU communities. However, its rapid growth created logistical headaches. Round-robin scheduling was impossible, and its point-based standings system often left teams and fans frustrated.

This came to a head in the late 1940s, when adding schools such as Winston-Salem Teachers College and Delaware State pushed membership to 16 schools. The league continued to get bigger in the following decades when it added Maryland State (now Maryland Eastern Shore), Fayetteville State and Norfolk State out of the Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (EIAC).

Some teams had gaudy records but didn’t get to see tough competition, meaning the football championship was determined by the Dickinson System while the league’s surging basketball tournament was limited to just eight teams. Schools such as Winston-Salem, North Carolina A&T, Norfolk State pretty much made yearly appearances while schools like Virginia Union, Johnson C. Smith and North Carolina College made it intermittently and schools like Hampton and Howard rarely sniffed it.

Schools like Howard and Morgan State were infrequent invitees to the CIAA tournament while schools like Johnson C. Smith and Elizabeth City State frequently made the eight-team tournament.

Moreover, the sheer diversity of its member institutions—ranging from small private colleges to increasingly larger state HBCUs —meant that governance often favored compromise over bold decision-making. This dynamic was considered untenable for the larger schools, which had their sights set on competing with predominantly white institutions (PWIs) in the NCAA’s upper echelons.

In the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of integration of college athletics, it was clear that great change was on the horizon. This was also the age of Nixon and the discussion between black capitalism vs. black cooperativism as eloquently written by Dick Gregory. “We shall overcome” was quickly turning into “I gotta get mine.”  And the heads of the larger, better resourced HBCUs saw themselves as prime candidates to cash in on what lay around the corner in the 1970s and beyond.

“Black Capitalism at its finest will never catch up to a white capitalism for the simple reason that blacks are starting with more than a hundred year disadvantage,” Gregory wrote at the time. “The current mood surrounding bother black capitalism concept will only end up producing another segregated system in this country.”

“What is needed is a concept of black cooperativism. Black capitalism as it is currently understood means a few individuals establishing a business to make a profit. The development of cooperative business allows many people to work for profit rather and survival. It is cooperativism rather than capitalism, which stands a stands of chance of ending the current  paternalistic overtones of federal programs. “