Presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have always known that our institutional success depends far less on our allies’ exercises in anti-racist rhetoric, and much more on their exercises in anti-racist resource sharing. Benjamin Elijah Mays, a man I count among my heroes and a former president of one of America’s most prestigious HBCUs, Morehouse College, understood this distinction quite well.
At the college’s Centennial Commencement Convocation, he issued this warning: “Discrimination in the future will not be administered by poor whites and the people who believe in segregation, but by the liberals who believe in a desegregated society … who will wine and dine with us in the swankiest hotels, work with us and still discriminate against us when it comes to money and power.”
Juneteenth allows us to reflect on white supremacy today
And today, as we celebrate the 158th anniversary of Juneteenth, a day which invites honest reflection about not just how far Black people have come since emancipation, but how much further along we should be, Mays’ words weigh heavy on my mind. For indeed, while the house of white supremacy may have had its foundation laid and its framing put up by openly racist hands, it does in fact seem that it is the liberals who, today, are not so much helping to tear down that house (as they might imagine), but who are often instead busily hanging the drywall and putting on the finishing touches.
Black Americans are no longer the focus. Juneteenth has fallen victim to racial capitalism.
I have come to accept the permanence, to some degree or another, of that house here in America. At the very same time, I know that our efforts to oppose its permanent influence over Black people’s ability to self-determine must always endure. And history shows us that when it comes to breaking that stranglehold over our genuine autonomy, we are never in a greater position to do so than when our Black institutions are well capitalized. But given the significant role that philanthropy has always played in our institutional capacity to serve and uplift the community, the cold indifference that has broadly characterized the donor class’ attitudes towards our Black institutions over the past 20 years suggests that the future described by Mays has indeed arrived.
White, liberal allies’ support for Black progress is lacking financially
A report released last month noted how, from 2002 to 2019, foundational support for HBCUs fell 30% from $65 million to $45 million. During 2015-2019, the nation’s eight Ivy League schools received a combined $5.5 billion in philanthropic dollars while, in that same period of time, the entirety of the nation’s 100 HBCUs received only $303 million. And to look at the average Ivy League school and the foundational funding it receives is to see an amount 178 times greater than that received by the average HBCU. Harvard University, for instance, boasts an endowment of $53 billion; the value of all HBCU endowments taken together is just 10% of that. And so, as the endowments of non-HBCUs continue to accumulate with charitable giving reaching its highest levels historically, HBCUs keep rattling their tin to an indifferent philanthropic sector.
What this tells me is that there is a definite disconnect between our liberal and progressive allies’ stated support for the cause of Black uplift and where they commit their resources to help us achieve that. Because, when it comes to Black people maximizing their potential, there is only one group of institutions which were established for that express purpose, and which have a definite, proven track record of fulfilling that mission: Black institutions.
Our HBCUs, which—while only constituting a mere 3% of our nation’s colleges—punch well above their weight in their development of America’s Black professional class. They disproportionately produce the number of America’s Black engineers (40%), Black doctors and dentists (70%), Black judges (80%), and Black public-school teachers (50%). And it is that last statistic in particular that—when I think of the current state of Black Louisville and what’s needed to guarantee an elevating effect on the community—points to the absolutely critical role of those institutions.
HBCUs prepare Black professionals to model success for younger generations
Consider the following: When low-income Black students have at least one Black teacher in the 3rd, 4th or 5th grade, they are nearly 39% less likely to drop out of school. Here in Jefferson County, we are a majority-minority school system that has long suffered from persistent gaps in graduation rates between its white and Black students. Given how the district’s Black student population (37%) is nearly three and a half times the total number of its Black teachers (11%), how can we possibly wonder why our Black youth are significantly less likely to see a commencement ceremony than their white peers?
Worse yet, how can we not possibly realize that we already have the exact means to treat and fix that problem. We know that the solution lies in our HBCUs. The data tell us that it is those institutions that are overwhelmingly preparing Black teachers to be in those public-school classrooms where they can model success for Black children and steer them away from self-doubt and lack of direction and keep them instead on a path of positive outcomes.
JCPS: White majority school board hurts Black students. We have the power to change this.
