Shelter in a Time of Storm: Historically Black Colleges and Universities as Racialized Spaces and Incubators of Activism

• In Event: 63.029 - Whose University? Constructing Identities and Narratives of Resistance in Higher Education

Abstract

Black colleges created counter narratives that empowered young Black students with an ethos that promoted race consciousness, idealism, and cultural nationalism. Such edifying messages were critically important to combat the rampant racial hostilities that were omnipresent in American society during their founding’s. By examining student-run newspapers as primary sources, this paper documents the legacy of historically Black colleges as incubators of activism and as racialized spaces that employed faculty and administrators who trained future leaders who were purposefully taught to refute the principals of white supremacy. In doing so, Black colleges not only "democratized evidence" they also succeeded in democratizing a nation by mounting a campaign to dismantle Jim Crow policies and champion the call for greater inclusion throughout American society.

Author

• Jelani Favors, Clayton State University