On this day in 1890, President Benjamin Harrison (R-IN) signed into law the Second Land-Grant College Act. The law, written by Senator Justin Morrill (R-VT), made African-Americans eligible to attend land-grant colleges. Specifically, the law required any state that banned African-Americans from attending land-grant colleges to establish land-grant colleges for those students. Back then, there was no legal or judicial means for the federal government to compel state governments to cease racial discrimination, so this law was actually a big step forward.