Are our HBCUs (Black Colleges & Universities) become Endangered Species?

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson 

 

Hello All:

One of my Lincoln University (PA) Classmates, Harold Freeman, sent me a link to this article that appeared in the New York Times - I had already read it; but I realize that there are many of you who either don't read the Times, or who are more into fashion and other articles. So I'm providing the link below.

In the midst of deciding on who is going to be the nominee for President, we have some very important, pragmatic issues to deal with - and maybe even put on the radar of the new ersatz president to be.

I don't care if you went to a Black College/University - HBCU - or not - They are an integral part of our heritage, and our future and must be supported and preserved - and it's up to us to do so. It's unacceptable that 3 Black colleges have been closed due to lack of support from the people they were developed for - US

 

But that we are not sending our children there, and those who graduate from them are not providing the ongoing support to their Alma Maters that their white counterparts do for theirs.

This article appeared in the NY Times - embarrassing isn't it? It shows that we are in the 21st Century, but still don't know it or act like it or even work on trying to bring our children into it. There is not excuse BLACK PEOPLE - forget Google, the internet, HipHop Artists, or all of the other so called trends of our current lives - if we lose those who made it possible for us to have decent educations, careers, and lifestyles, when the doors of the meanstream colleges were closed to us - it means absolutely nothing except to show that we are apparently stuck on stupid.

I am so tired of hearing about youth receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships and then going to a white college. I am sick of major mega millionaire stars and athletes taking their largesse and donating it to white colleges who already are endowed by white millionaires.

I am equally tired of these turkeys sending their children to ivy league schools and totally ignoring our HBCUs.

One of the reasons why I loved PRINCE is because he secretly and routinely donated to HBCUs. He saved FISK UNIVERSITY when it was going under.   Long before Black billionaire Charles F. Smith made the generous offer to underwrite the tuition of the students of Morehouse University. 

This kind of ignorance that appears to be pervasive among us - while they are trying to make colleges "free" no one is talking about making sure that our kids have access and that our HBCUs have endowments - somehow, once again, as Johnnie Cochrane used to say, "The white man's ice is colder," and we're looking in the wrong direction when it comes to what's important to us.

 

In Pennsylvania, Lincoln University - the world's first HBCU, and Cheyney University, the world's first Children's school, that later became an University, struggle each year to meet the needs of their students and keep their doors open.  While other Universities are receiving a large chunk of the state's budget, it's still touch and go - Lincoln celebrates 165 years this year - a major feat for a school that is located just 3 miles north of a KKK stronghold, that routinely threatened to destroy them.

 

Cheyney, which started out as the School for Colored Youth in 1837, has served the children of Philadelphia and surrounding communities for nearly 200 years.  It became a degree granting school in 1914, and has been exemplary in its programs ever since.  

 

Yet these two schools combined don't receive one quarter the funds that are set aside for UPenn, Drexel, Temple and other non-Black Universities in the area.  Despite that, such luminaries as Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes, Jannie Blackwell, Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikewe, Sam Anderson, and others have emerged from their doors.  

 

here are so many more who can be part of a luminous future that our HBCUs provide, but won't if we don't stop the assassination of our schools through attrition, underfunding, and bogus accreditation snafus.

Only one who has no understanding of the value of a good education would consider this a non-issue. But, I trust that my readership is not among that population.

If you went to an HBCU, please start working together with your alumni to make regular donations and fundraisers a priority. 

If you did not, you still need to be involved in the preservation and expansion of our HBCUs regardless of whether there is one in your state or not.

I will also take this opportunity to brag that in THE DULAN FAMILY it was absolutely MANDATORY to go to a BLACK college - so I represent generations who graduated from the following: 

LANGSTON UNIVERSITY (Oklahoma), LINCOLN UNIVERSITY (Pennsylvania), HOWARD UNIVERSITY (DC), HAMPTON UNIVERSITY (Virginia), NORTH CAROLINA A&T (Greensboro, NC), TENNESSEE A&I (Tennessee), CENTRAL STATE U (Wilberforce, OH) - 

And their/our children - with the exception of 1 also graduated from there and  have also sent their children to HBCUs.  (Graduate school is their own choice, but I must say that most have excellent post-graduate programs as well).

With so many negative forces out here directed at our demise, we should not be the ones helping to accelerate it. No one will take care of our children's future. It's our responsibility.  We have no excuse.

Carter G. Woodson, the father of BLACK HISTORY MONTH, and author of THE MIS-EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO, wrote, (and I'm paraphrasing): "If they can control your education, they can control your thoughts; if they can control your thoughts, they can control your destiny.   He also cautioned Black people to remember the lessons of the fruit stand, and make sure that their education is both intellectual and functional - applicable to their future and livelihood (so we don't turn out to be educated fools and intellectual snobs; but can actually do something of service and substance for ourselves and our people)  We drag his book out every 30 or 40 years, but are too cowardly to implement his bold recommendations.  Which is why we are in the mess we are in today - most of our kids in secondary school are undereducated and clueless, and their parents have very little in the way of the necessary educational requirements to help them.  It's one of the reasons that Woodson, when he saw this almost 100 years ago, went to work to try to change this.  He knew that  Black people have to be involved with education that is relevant to them and their future, historically and functionally . 90 years later and we're still on the late show. Time to get with the program BLACK PEOPLE.

 

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE NEW YORK TIME'S ARTICLE 

‘Your Heritage Is Taken Away’: The Closing of 3 Historically Black Colleges

For nearly 200 years, historically black colleges and universities have educated thousands of students, but they continue to face an uncertain future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/hbcu-closed-graduates.html

 

 

HBCUs ARE OUR HERITAGE - MAKE SURE YOU'RE DOING YOUR PART IN PRESERVING IT AND EXPANDING IT

NOW THAT YOU KNOW

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Stay Blessed &

ECLECTICALLY BLACK

Gloria

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, '67

 

 

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