Shaw University, is the first historically black university in the Southern United States. Shaw is a private liberal arts institution affiliated with the Baptist Church and among the oldest HBCUs in the nation. Founded in 1865, our University has a rich history steeped in tradition, activism and service. We were the first college in North Carolina to offer a four-year medical school; the first institution of higher learning established for freedmen after the Civil War and the first historically Black College in the nation to open its doors to women.