The Best PR Firm You Never Heard Of

In the years after Brown v. Board, when many believed that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were on the road to oblivion, one consultancy — the Oram Group — was working on major fundraising campaigns for these institutions.

Although virtually unexamined in the literature, the Oram Group can serve "as a lens through which we can view the development of modern day fundraising at black colleges," observe Marybeth Gasman and Noah Drezner.

A for-profit firm that served progressive causes, the Oram Group was well ahead of its time in its hiring practices — by 1964, both women and blacks held high-level positions — as well as in its work with HBCU clients like Tougaloo College, Howard University, Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta), and Dillard University.

Unlike their competitors, the Oram Group urged black colleges to focus on alumni and the emerging black middle class and worked closely with leadership to build campaigns that would have a long-term impact. Finally, the Oram consultants encouraged their clients to promote the idea that, rather than being vestiges of segregation, HBCUs were vital to the whole of American society.

"A Maverick in the Field: The Oram Group and Fundraising in the Black College Community during the 1970s" appears in History of Education Quarterly, 49(4).