June 2022 - “Budgets, Bomb Scares, and Black Education"
Soon after Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first graduate of an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to become Vice President, the pilot of her “Marine Two” helicopter surprised her by circling over her undergraduate campus at Howard University. Looking down, the Vice President appreciated just how much her HBCU helped her ascend to political heights. Education, so long denied to Black Americans, empowered her.
That’s why, prior to the Civil War, it was illegal to teach enslaved Americans. In 1830, North Carolina law spelled out why: “The teaching of slaves to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion.” Permitted to learn, Black Americans did demand freedom. As Frederick Douglass wrote, “Education means emancipation. It means the uplifting of man into the glorious light of truth.”
Ninety institutions of higher education, including Howard, Shaw, Morehouse and Hampton, were established in the first 35 years after the Civil War to bring the light of truth. The Second Morrill Act of 1890 developed land-grants for institutions for Black students in the former Confederate states. And, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the Higher Education Act of 1965 formally recognized and committed to support the principal mission of HBCUs - to educate people who were systematically denied formal education in the United States.
Despite generous private donors, HBCUs are challenged by inconsistent and insufficient government financing. Lodriguez Murray, Senior Vice President of the United Negro College Fund, pointed out that despite widespread excitement over the election of the first Black President, 40,000 students could not afford to attend HBCUs after President Obama limited access to the Parent PLUS loan program. President Trump raised the profile of HBCUs and expanded Pell Grants, Murray acknowledged, but Trump also proposed steep cuts to higher education research. Murray also defended Biden from unfair claims in the fall of 2021 that the President slashed funding to HBCUs, because it was Congress that made such cuts. Nevertheless, HBCUs are constantly having to lobby for their future.
This year, HBCUs were further burdened by terrorist scares. Eight campuses, including Howard University, received bomb threats that led to evacuations, lockdowns, and additional trauma for so many already scarred by recent racial violence and the deaths of innocent Black citizens. Since this past January, according to Inside Higher Ed, the FBI has counted 59 similar threats resulting in “a mental toll, creating anxiety and stress among students, employees and their families and a need for expanded mental health services.”
The historical trauma inflicted on Black people compounds the effect of more recent stressors. The threats of the past year were not anomalies, explained Georgia State University law professor Washington Hicks: “This is part of a pattern and practice of racial and terroristic threats that have included children, in what most people have considered to be safe spaces, like churches and synagogues and schools and homes… it just adds a whole new level of terror.”
Tennessee State University students were reminded of this historic pattern when the Vice President admitted, “The world that you graduated into is unsettled.” At the commencement event, just before Kamala Harris spoke, a video montage about the civil rights movement began with the murder of Emmett Till. It seems, Harris commented, that “history is repeating itself as women and men once again face disenfranchisement through extreme wealth inequality, disparities in criminal justice” and the infringement on voting rights.
But she reminded the graduates that, while they may enter rooms full of powerful people that don’t look like them, “At that moment, you must remember that you are not in that room alone. Always know that you carry the voices of everyone here and those upon whose shoulders you stand.” Many graduates report that the legacy and solidarity found at HBCUs helps them persist in the struggle for racial justice. It led Harris to conclude, “I cannot wait to see the future you will create.” Help assure that this future is bright. Support HBCUs.
Further actions:
1) Given that the United Negro College Fund directly supports 37 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, consider sharing “Why HBCUs Still Matter” with your friends and join me in making a contribution to the UNCF.
2) Contact your legislators and ask them to support the HBCU Ignite Act. Historic discrimination has led to HBCUs having much smaller endowments with which to keep campus infrastructure in good repair. According the American Council on Education the “average endowments of public HBCUs are $7,265 per student and $24,989 per student at private HBCUs compared to the average endowment of $25,390 per student at public colleges and $184,409 at private institutions.” The HBCU Ignite Act would help the 90% of HBCUs needing repairs to dorms, classrooms, and laboratories.
3) Let others know that “HBCUs outperform non-HBCU institutions in retaining and graduating first-generation, low-income African American students.” Many Black students find greater interpersonal and institutional support at HBCUs than at primarily white institutions. Given increasing incidents of racial violence, this support can help students heal personally and succeed academically. Spelman college freshman Brianna Fewell spoke of the stress caused by constant messages from the college’s alert system and the anxiety caused by simply spotting unattended bags on campus. Bomb scares, even if they don’t end in explosions, damage mental and physical health. Speak out for ensuring safe learning environments for all students!