Final answer:
The Morrill Act of 1862 had little success in educating African Americans due to segregation, prompting the Second Morrill Act of 1890 which mandated separate land-grant institutions for African Americans, leading to the establishment of historically Black colleges and universities.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Morrill Act of 1862, authored by Vermont Republican senator Justin Smith Morrill, was instrumental in establishing land-grant colleges to teach agricultural and mechanical arts using federal land grants. However, this act had little success in providing education to African Americans due to persistent segregation and discrimination during the post-Civil War era. By the late 19th century, the Second Morrill Act of 1890 was necessary to address these shortcomings and explicitly require the established land-grant institutions to provide separate colleges for persons of color if they were denied entrance elsewhere, thus leading to the founding of several historically Black colleges and universities.
Notably, prior to the Second Morrill Act, educational efforts for African Americans included the establishment of over 200 colleges by missionary groups, Black churches, benevolent societies, and the Freedman's Bureau. Although progress was slow, these institutions laid the groundwork for higher education for African Americans. The 1890 Act was essential because it acknowledged and aimed to rectify the state-sanctioned educational inequalities that African Americans continued to endure following the abolition of slavery.