Tuskegee University, home of Booker T. Washington. Fisk University, where students led the Nashville sit-ins. Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the first. Howard University, the most well-known. These four schools, along with 103 others in the United States, are all Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
HBCUs were created in response to legal racial segregation and founded largely during the Reconstruction Era to provide Black Americans with the education and skills they needed for economic and social advancement. While they are predominantly centers of Black culture, all students can apply and be accepted to HBCUs regardless of race or ethnicity. Even though there are currently no HBCUs in the state of Massachusetts, dozens of students at the high school visit and apply to them each year.
Towards the middle of her junior year, senior Jaydn Williams said she realized she wanted to go to an HBCU and began researching her top choices. She said that with the exception of one school, she has loved all the HBCUs she has toured, and her college process has helped her better understand why they exist.
“Going to Brookline, it’s a predominantly white institution (PWI), and I feel like I want to be around people that go through similar experiences. Of course there’s nothing wrong with being with white people all of the time, but when you aren’t around people that look like you, sometimes as a kid that makes you feel certain ways about yourself,” Williams said. “College is a very important time for you and your growth. So I feel like it’s really going to help me in my career and life.”
With a mother who graduated college but wishes she had attended an HBCU instead, and a father who didn’t graduate college, Williams said she hopes she can make her family proud. She said her family and her time in the African American and Latino Scholars Program (AALSP) influenced her decision.
AALSP staff member and Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) Curriculum Coordinator Karim Azeb said that there has always been a steady interest in HBCUs, especially from students already enrolled in METCO, AALSP or Steps to Success.
“From the moment they join the program, they’re inundated with ‘you stand on the shoulders of giants, you are Black, you are brown and we’re here for your success.’ But that doesn’t necessarily translate to actual attendance of HBCUs,” Azeb said. “If you get into Clark-Atlanta, Howard, Spellman, Morehouse and you also get into Boston College (BC), you’re probably [attending BC] because of all the prestige around it.”
Having attended Clark-Atlanta University for graduate school, Azeb said that was the first time in his life he enjoyed school. According to Azeb, who was getting his masters degree in education, he enjoyed being amongst like-minded peers who shared his goal of learning how to better teach Black and brown kids.
“I didn’t have to write a puff piece introduction paper about my experience as a Black man in America because my professors already knew what it was [like], so you get to go deeper,” Azeb said. “Sometimes when you try to talk about your life to students who don’t come from where you’re from, they’ll try to challenge you about it or diminish it. That just didn’t happen when I was at an HBCU.”
METCO Director J. Malcolm Cawthorne said prior to attending Grambling State University, he had met only two Black teachers and one Black coach in his thirteen years of education in the Brookline public school system. According to him, this impacted his confidence and perspective.
“HBCUs foster academic excellence and build towards a Black middle class. Also, I met my wife at my HBCU, so in many ways I learned what it means to love,” Cawthorne said. “There were Black students and teachers from Africa and the Caribbean who followed many faiths while speaking many languages. Furthermore, I met rural Black folks and broadened my view of what it means to be Black in my current existence.”
Cawthorne said HBCUs distinguish themselves through their mission of providing academic opportunities that have been historically restrictive. For example, even the HBCUs founded in the Northern states of Ohio and Pennsylvania were the product of escaped slaves and free Black people who were not able to attend schools with white people.
“One of the things people are finding is that the world we live in is highly segregated without the legal code or laws to uphold it. This creates a great deal of isolation for marginalized students that maintains a need for HBCUs,” Cawthorne said.
Azeb said that while PWIs try their best, students of color may end up falling through the cracks or having to carve out support networks that did not originally exist. He said he strongly feels there are numerous benefits for Black students furthering their education at schools where they can see themselves as part of a majority of the student body and staff.
“You have to fight to find your community in different corners of your campus [at a PWI]. So even while the academic experiences are level playing fields or even arguably better at some of the lead PWIs, the social-emotional benefits of an HBCU are not anything you’ll find in literally any other walk of life in America,” Azeb said. “If I could redo my college experience, I would have gone to an HBCU. I thoroughly regret not having gone earlier.”
