Historically, the OVC was a pioneer in racial desegregation, with Morehead State signing the conference's first black athlete, Marshall Banks, in 1958. The rest of the OVC soon followed in Morehead State's wake. From 1986 to 2018, the OVC was unique among NCAA Division I conferences in that it included one historically black university, Tennessee State University, in a conference that otherwise consists of institutions that are not traditionally black. During this period, every other HBCU in NCAA Division I belonged to either the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference or Southwestern Athletic Conference. That distinction changed in July 2018 when Hampton University joined the Big South Conference.