An HBCU Story: Building Resilience in the Academy Through Black Women’s Daughtering/Other Mothering Relationships

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Never a Level Playing Field: Higher Learning and the Black Student (Table 11)

Abstract

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) support graduates to develop strong academic identities in spaces where they share common cultural practices with their peers. This study draws from Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry to analyze the evolution of a daughtering/other mothering relationship between Black women academicians, who crossed paths 20 years ago at an HBCU. These stories offer a glimpse at the derivative familial potential (daughtering/other mothering) from the mentorship components engrained in the culture and inherently embedded in the fabric of the HBCUs design. The HBCUs experience is limited, through the stories of students who have matriculated. Through sharing these narratives, one can understand how daughtering/other mothering relationships were given fertile ground within the HBCUs experience.

Authors

• Krystal Madden, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Loria Brown Gordon, Jackson State University