My alma mater was named the #1 HBCU by U.S. News and World Reports, and of course, I am beaming from ear to ear. My brother's alma mater was named #1 by Washington Monthly, and while I don't know much about that magazine, I will allow them this one opportunity to bask in the glory of beating us on someone's list.
Since I graduated from college back in the 1990s, I have been made proud each time my school or any other HBCU lands at the top of some list of best buys, best liberal arts, best in the South, or best overall. I am proud because it reaffirms why I stand by my choice some 20-odd years ago.
Back then, college admissions had begun to open up for African American students and many of us had the opportunity to attend many more schools than our parents had. During my junior year when I was finally focused on life beyond the hell of high school, I visited my future alma mater and fell in LOVE with the campus, the students, and the city I would later call home. Some of my classmates challenged my decision by suggesting that life at an HBCU was not the real world.
I need to back up a little more to provide some context to my decision and the debates themselves...in the late 1980s, two big cultural phenomenons led to a resurgence of interest in HBCUs. On the one hand there was "A Different World", the spin-off to the "Cosby Show" which depicted life at the fictional Hillman College. Although that show began on somewhat shaky ground, the second big push came from Spike Lee's "School Daze", a film about Homecoming weekend at the fictional Mission College. That show and that movie are responsible for the bumper crop of HBCU graduates among the children of baby boomers and ignited the debate about those institutions that, to this day, still inflames passions on both sides of the issue.
This is not a debate about affirmative action and its role in creating opportunity for black students. This is a far more nuanced and internal debate about the future of institutions whose existence is in question because of affirmative action.
So back in my junior year, conversations about college among black students went a little like this:
Pro HBCU: It gives me a chance to attend an institution that was created for me.
Con HBCU: It is not the real world. How are you going to get along with people from different backgrounds once you graduate.
Pro HBCU: Just fine because I will probably attend a racially integrated grad or professional school.
Con HBCU: By then it might be too late. You won't be as prepared to attend those types of schools.
Pro HBCU: Not so. Many HBCU graduates have gone on to become successful at other institutions.
Con HBCU: But that was the past, what about the future?
And this went on and on...both sides had valid points and in the end, I went to my school and others made different choices.
Fast forward to the 21st Century and the factors that inform this debate now. Affirmative action has been under constant attack, but black students still attend majority institutions at greater rates than they attend HBCUs. Several HBCUs have closed or are on the brink of closure for any number of reasons. Students have even more choices with the rise of community and for-profit colleges that offer more choice and flexibility. A bachelor's degree is what a high school diploma was a generation ago.
Would I still make the same choice? Absolutely! For the same reasons? Another resounding YES.
But to be clear, this is not as much about my institution as it is about every HBCU that still stands as a legacy to how important education still is with respect to social and economic progress. I can look back at yearbooks that attest to what my school has produced, just like everyone else I know, but I have the additional blessing of seeing a lot of faces that look like mine--even in the worst of times. Looking ahead, I see an institution that produces women who want to take over the world...and one day, one of us will.
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