In an election won on the backs of Black women’s grassroots activism, it is especially fitting that Black women, Black people, and the Black institutions which undergird them, enjoy these moments of collective joy. Despite successes that are as formidable as their obstacles have been plentiful, the determination of Black folk to redeem the soul of America continues. Truthfully, such is the same for HBCUs, which have nothing to prove to anyone—much less to those whose racializations privilege whiteness, white institutions, and white achievement. Since their inception, Black schools, like Black people, have been assailed by racist attacks on Black possibility and Black achievement. They have survived slavery and unfreedoms, wars and poverty, they have overcome illiteracy and grave unfunding, and stared down racist mobs. From their hallowed halls, they raised up generations who called them blessed. From Thurgood Marshall to Kamala Harris, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Stacey Abrams, and from John Lewis to Raphael Warnock, HBCUs have proudly produced political upstarts and powerhouses as naturally and as powerfully as they have spurred social activists. Their insurgency is, without question, among the most powerful tools in the refashioning of an American nation that is forced by courageous, unapologetic Blackness to live up to its pronounced ideals. That is what we hope that Black faces, like Madam Vice President Harris, in positions of power never before occupied by Black people offer our collective destiny: Black representation of our struggles, our experiences and our perspectives—not perfection.
10 | HBCU Times 2021 Spring Issue
Crystal A. deGregory, Ph.D. is the founder of HBCUstory and is a research fellow at the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A graduate of Fisk, Tennessee State and Vanderbilt universities, Dr. deGregory offers a wide range of expertise on multiple topics including race, women and girls, history, culture, education, and of course, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Follow her online at @HBCUstorian.