Norfolk State University made me and still shapes me to this day.
How we move in white-washed rooms with confidence, wrestle with the waves of a nation in tyranny, and still find joy and love and grit and grace to take up space not just for ourselves but for others blooms straight from the roots in the yard of our HBCUs.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities are a legacy of access, opportunity, dreaming, and community weaving together our possibilities. So when Morehouse College takes the field to play Johnson C. Smith University on Saturday at Harvard Stadium, it’s more than a game.
When those bands come marching in, consider it both a celebration and a calling — a soulful ringing of an alarm — move your feet and protect our heritage and future.
Already, HBCU students and colleges are seeing scholarship and funding cuts attached to the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Intel ended a partnership with North Carolina Central University’s law school that had sought to build a legal pipeline.
Howard University, the nation’s only federally chartered HBCU, is suffering a $50 million cut to its budget thanks to a Trump proposal. This administration has yet to select an executive director for the White House Initiative on HBCUs and a President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department declared that grants reserved for colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Latino give an unconstitutional advantage. And just like that, the framework that could be used to defund HBCUs is in our face.
Shani Wright, a sophomore at Howard University who grew up in Mattapan and Hyde Park, says today is the time for a united front.
“If we are all standing together, protecting and advocating for HBCUs and speaking up and fighting to make sure our students and infrastructures are protected, these voices will be heard and it will be hard to knock down something that is so supported.”
She didn’t grow up hearing about HBCUs. So to her, something like the Essence HBCU Classic coming to Boston could serve as a way to raise awareness.
“We have excellent universities in Boston and New England and they are all great choices,” she says. “HBCUs embody excellence, too. We need to re-establish that presence, that history our schools are built upon, and give Black students more options. I am sitting in classes, going to the library, and possibly holding books that Toni Morrison and former vice president Kamala Harris held.”
When she first started at Howard last year, she boxed with her nerves. Not anymore.
“I believe HBCUs are a beautiful resistance because they stand as a constant reminder of all the history, perseverance, and determination our ancestors had to create an institution where they could be educated and supported,” Wright says “HBCUs also serve as a representation of how far African Americans have come. They are spaces where we as Black people can unapologetically and authentically be Black, confident, successful, and educated.”
There is too much at stake to idly sit by. While our colleges and universities make up only 3 percent of American higher-ed institutions, they produce 50 percent of Black educators, 70 percent of Black doctors and dentists, and 80 percent of Black judges, according to the United Negro College Fund. Though our schools are mission-driven around Black culture, non-Black students have always been welcome to apply and attend.
Our safe spaces deserve our protection and investment.
“Why would we not want to continue to support the history of HBCUs and what they produce?” asks English. “There is a high level of excellence you walk into when you go to an HBCU. They want you to be great. They want you to succeed. There is a special nurturing and pouring into that you get at an HBCU that helps you survive out in the world.”
HBCUs are more likely to open the door than shut it. Ask Brockton’s own Dana Tate Jr. He experienced some growing pains at two different schools as he found himself as both star athlete and student.
“Norfolk State reached out to me when things were rough for me,” he says. “I wasn’t playing basketball at the time. And they saw something in me. Coach Jones and Coach Brown took the time to recruit me. And you know, make me feel like there’s another chance.”
He went on to not only help Norfolk State clinch the MEAC championship, he played for two teams overseas and finished his degree last year.
“I just feel like it helped me become more open to seeing things and being comfortable in who I am, having that experience and having them believe in me.”
Segun Idowu, a proud graduate of Morehouse College and the city’s chief of economic opportunity and inclusion, says the HBCU Classic is an opportunity to celebrate Black culture on and off HBCU campuses.
“To be able to have folks from the neighborhood see a bit of what makes Morehouse what it is, to bring a piece of it here, means a lot. There is an economic impact, too. We are seeing it across restaurants and businesses. It’s great that we don’t have to keep exporting Bostonians to HBCUs to experience the joy that comes from the culture at those colleges.”
There’s also an empowerment that comes from a game like this and a week rich with cultural celebrations. All across the city, from Hue and Grace by Nia to The Mix and Savvor, there are HBCU parties.
“When I was in school in Atlanta, we were everywhere,” Idowu says. “It’s not just about HBCU alumnus, but Black people in general, celebrating all elements of our culture together. Bostonians are living a part of the future we all hoped for, one in which you could be Black anywhere and that feels good.”
The beauty of this week in Boston is we are bringing to everyone something our books didn’t teach us. On an HBCU yard, school spirit is so much more than where you go. It is a spirit of humanity, of love, of community. A spirit so divinely planted our determination is unbreakable.
Our schools were mostly built during the Jim Crow era, during times shockingly similar to today. And yet, we forged a way. It is today our time to pave. We must fight to keep our community of campuses. We must invest to stay.
A Beautiful Newsletter expands the community of “A Beautiful Resistance,” created by columnist Jeneé Osterheldt to carry on the tradition of Black artists and Black journalists in reclaiming the truth of Black folk. If you’d like to receive it free via email each week, sign up here.
Jeneé Osterheldt can be reached at jenee.osterheldt@globe.com. Follow her @sincerelyjenee and on Instagram @abeautifulresistance.
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