Black college football national championship

The black college football national championship is a national championship won by the best football team(s) among Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the United States.

In college football's early years, HBCUs generally lacked the opportunity to compete against predominantly white schools due to segregation, which was practiced in much of the U.S. at the time—leaving HBCUs with few scheduling options other than to play themselves only and sponsor their own championships.

The first football game between HBCU schools was played on December 27, 1892. On that day Johnson C. Smith defeated Livingstone. As it was the only game played by HBCU schools that year, Johnson C. Smith's team could no doubt claim to be that season's HBCU national champions by default. However, the earliest documented claim to such a title was Livingstone's 1906 team, led by captain Benjamin Butler "Ben" Church. It is not immediately clear who designated Livingstone as the best team—or if they simply declared themselves champions.

Initially, starting in 1920, an HBCU national champion was simply declared by the Pittsburgh Courier at the end of the season. The following year others more directly associated with the schools themselves made their own attempts to crown a champ, coordinating their efforts under the auspices of the Champion Aggregation of All Conferences. The CAAC's initiative was fostered by Paul Jones, who reported the champion annually in his column in Spalding's Intercollegiate Football Guide.

The first game between an HBCU and predominantly white school occurred in the 1948 Fruit Bowl when Southern defeated San Francisco State, 30–0. Starting five years after that game, HBCUs began to gravitate over to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics because it offered numerous athletic competition options while also openly welcoming schools of varying demographic backgrounds as members. At present most HBCUs are now members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. However, designating an annual black national champion has remained a popular tradition, even as HBCUs have successfully challenged majority white schools for football championships for decades now, within the framework of both NCAA and NAIA competition; this includes Associated Press, United Press International, NCAA, and NAIA-sponsored titles for the 1962, 1973, 1978, 1990, 1992, and 1995 seasons, as well as runner-up finishes in 1963, 1983, 1991, 1994, and 2012.

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