Entrepreneurial Appetite
The State Must Provide: Throwback Episode
Celebrating my 40th birthday with a mission, we aim to secure 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina A&T State University. This episode promises heartfelt stories from A&T alumni Brittany Patrick and Terrell Morton, who share their deep-rooted connections to the university, emphasizing the endowment's significance in fostering educational greatness. Tune in as we commit 100% of our podcast profits from June and July to this scholarship, supporting educators on their graduate journeys.
We explore the vibrant and unique experience of attending an HBCU, shining a spotlight on Alabama A&M University. You’ll hear about the tight-knit community, the rich culture, and the life-changing relationships with professors that shape careers, turning students into influential writers and authors. Through their stories, we underscore the distinctiveness of HBCU experiences compared to predominantly white institutions, making a compelling case for why these schools are invaluable.
In addition, we tackle the pressing issue of historical funding inequities faced by HBCUs. Joined by Adam Harris, author of "The State Must Provide," we delve into the systemic financial disparities and the critical need for sustainable funding solutions. We also examine the larger narrative of racial inequities in higher education, from state failures to provide fair funding to the ongoing struggle for equitable support. This episode is a powerful call to action, advocating for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship and the enduring importance of HBCUs in American society.
Support the From A&T To PhD Endowed Scholarship
Celebrating my 40th birthday with a mission, we aim to secure 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship at North Carolina A&T State University. This episode promises heartfelt stories from A&T alumni Brittany Patrick and Terrell Morton, who share their deep-rooted connections to the university, emphasizing the endowment's significance in fostering educational greatness. Tune in as we commit 100% of our podcast profits from June and July to this scholarship, supporting educators on their graduate journeys.
We explore the vibrant and unique experience of attending an HBCU, shining a spotlight on Alabama A&M University. You’ll hear about the tight-knit community, the rich culture, and the life-changing relationships with professors that shape careers, turning students into influential writers and authors. Through their stories, we underscore the distinctiveness of HBCU experiences compared to predominantly white institutions, making a compelling case for why these schools are invaluable.
In addition, we tackle the pressing issue of historical funding inequities faced by HBCUs. Joined by Adam Harris, author of "The State Must Provide," we delve into the systemic financial disparities and the critical need for sustainable funding solutions. We also examine the larger narrative of racial inequities in higher education, from state failures to provide fair funding to the ongoing struggle for equitable support. This episode is a powerful call to action, advocating for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship and the enduring importance of HBCUs in American society.
Support the From A&T To PhD Endowed Scholarship
What's up everybody. Once again, this is Dr Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneur Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. I want to welcome you to a special series of our podcast celebrating a milestone that is close to my heart my 40th birthday. As part of this celebration, I'm setting an ambitious goal to gain 40 new donors for the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship in North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an endowment that I co-founded to support teachers and educators who are on their journeys to get graduate degrees. For those of you who have joined our live discussions, you know that typically, 10% of the profits from the podcast go to support this endowment. However, for the months of June and July, I'm thrilled to announce that 100% of the profits will be dedicated to the From A&T to PhD endowed scholarship. If you are inspired to support this cause, a link to contribute to the endowment can be found in the show notes. We're asking listeners to generously support the From A&T to PhD endowed scholarship to help more educators increase their education so that they can better support the students in our community. This special series will feature testimonials from A&T alumni who have gone on to earn their PhDs, sharing their journeys and impact of their education on their lives and career. It will also feature some new episodes from authors who have written books about HBCUs and a few throwback episodes. Historically, black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs, have nurtured Black communities through enslavement, war, reconstruction, the nadir, civil rights, benign neglect, integration, the inauguration of the first Black president and now the first Black and woman vice president, who also happens to be the graduate of an HBCU. Yet, despite their contributions to Black communities' abilities to access the American dream, they have always been, and continue to be, underfunded. So in this episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite's Black Book Discussions, we bring you a conversation with Adam Harris, author of the State Must Provide why America's Colleges have Always Been Unequal and how to Set them Right. What's good everyone? This is Langston Clark, founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite. Hi, everyone, this is Langston Clark, founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite. As you know, this is a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses. That's why I'm proud to share that this episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite's Black Book Discussions is particularly special because it is the first time that EA will be supporting an endowment that I have started with two friends of mine, brittany Patrick and Terrell Morton. The endowment will be called from A&T to PhD and will go to support graduate students at our alma mater, north Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, in HBCU.
Speaker 1:Before starting our conversation with speaker Adam Harris, brittany Terrell and Courtney Dabney, director of Development in the College of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina A&T, will speak briefly about our philanthropic efforts. Entrepreneurs I have a very sort of broad definition of that, and what I mean by that is I'm thinking about Black institutions that support our communities economically, spiritually, the whole nine, okay. And so I have the honor of presenting these folks to you here today, because if it wasn't for them, we would not be, as Entrepreneur Appetite, partnering with North Carolina A&T to support an endowment that Brittany Terrell and I have started called From A&T to PhD, and so, for those of you who purchased tickets tonight, 10% of whatever Entrepreneur Appetite makes tonight is going to go to help support endowment, to help support endowment. And so I just wanna ask Brittany and Terrell to just start off and really just briefly talk about your experience at North Carolina A&T and why it was important for you to be a part of starting this endowment.
Speaker 3:Hi, all nice to be with everyone this evening. My name is Brittany Patrick. I am a excuse the baby in the background but I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, college Park and a 2010 graduate of North Carolina A&T. I'm truly Aggie born and Aggie bred. As he's saying, aggie pride, as Dr Morton is as well.
Speaker 3:My parents met at A&T. A&t was the primary college or one college I applied to. I did half my application for another university that shall remain nameless, because I had my mind made up, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't value the experiences and the opportunities that A&T has provided me to pursue excellence in every area of my life, and I absolutely know that that's not an experience that I could have received at any other university, and so I'm honored that Dr Morton, dr Clark and I have been able to establish this endowment from A&T to PhD, which truly represents our values, our professional experience, but, more than anything, our love for our dear old A&T and I don't know how I will be able to follow up with such an amazing introduction from the illustrious future Dr Brittany Patrick, as well as that future Aggie that she is taking care of in the background at the current moment, but my name is Terrell Morton.
Speaker 4:I'm currently an assistant professor of identity and justice excuse me, yes, identity and justice and STEM education at the University of Missouri Columbia. I'm a 2011 graduate of the illustrious North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and, as future Dr Patrick said, I am also Aggie born and Aggie bred. My parents met at A&T. They had me while they were still attending A&T, and I actually went to college classes before I went to daycare, so I have the opportunity to really get a strong hold on what Aggie pride meant and then, taking that to the next level, you know, went there for my alma mater and continue to find ways to pour into the space that poured into me, and so that was part of the reasoning for why I was excited to not only connect with my friends and fellow Aggies, but to do so in a way that was investing back into spaces that invested in us, in different capacities, across our own personal, social, emotional, psychological and professional journeys.
Speaker 1:Look, he talked like a PhD. To Lord have mercy. And anyways, I want to spotlight right now a very special person, miss Courtney Dabney, who really has been like the catalyst for us to bring us together. We have been talking to Courtney probably for like three years. Like, when you think about it, it's been like three, four years to get this thing going. And so, courtney, I really if you could just kind of like tell us for anyone who's in the audience today, anyone who's listening, what they can do from your perspective, as someone who works in development at a historically black college, to build relationships with someone like you for the most effective way that they can get back to their institution, institution.
Speaker 5:Certainly. Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of this webinar this evening. Again, I'm Courtney Dabney. I serve as the Director of Development for the John R and Kathy R Harrison College of Health and Human Sciences at A&T. It is such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5:I think that there are many ways that alums can give back. Certainly, scholarship, private philanthropy, makes that margin of excellence. It creates and allows us to do more for our students, for our faculty, build new opportunities, buildings all of those things come into play when you're talking about private philanthropy. But certainly we don't just need your treasure, we need your time. We need you to give back to our students through mentorship. So there are many ways that you can get involved with our students on campus and with our faculty, and so I encourage if you are interested in learning more about ways that you can get involved with the university, certainly reach out to me.
Speaker 5:I'm always looking for creative ways to involve folks. It doesn't have to be. You know how we think that philanthropy should be. We are open to creating new, innovative ways to give back to our students so that they can be exactly where you all are today. We know that A&T builds such a strong foundation for our for students, and so we want to make sure that we continue to provide that legacy. It really I did not know that both of you all, brittany and Terrell that both of your parents met at A&T. How awesome is that? I think that just shows the type of what A&T does and how it creates that legacy and how we continue to build, and so it. I mean, I'm just excited to be here and certainly open to have discussions about ways that folks can get involved with what's going on at the university currently.
Speaker 1:Again, thank all of you in the audience here for joining us today. I actually think Terrell and Brittany and this is how I know Courtney is like the number one development person at A&T she got Brittany's name right and we've been slaughtering that thing for years. Okay, it's Brittany. Okay, dr Brittany. Patrick and Terrell's parents both met at North Carolina A&T and I want to introduce you all today to our feature speaker, who is Adam Harris, who writes like he got a PhD in history. He is a graduate of Alabama A&M State University and I want to have him take the time to introduce who he is to you all so that you all can get to know our future. Speaker here for today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. As I mentioned, I'm Adam Harris the author of the State Must Provide why American Colleges have Always Been Unequal and how to Set them Right, as well as a staff writer at the Atlantic. But first and foremost, I am an alum of Alabama A&M University, Normal Alabama, alabama's largest public HBCU, and you know I'm really looking forward to this conversation. It is always fantastic to be joined by folks in the HBCU community and you know North Carolina A&T third largest research producing institution in the state of North Carolina, just behind UNC and North Carolina State. So A&T is a fantastic example of what our institutions have been able to do. In spite of a legacy of underfunding, that these institutions have been able to perform above and beyond. It's just really a testament to the faculty, the students and all of the folks involved. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So, adam, I know you went to Alabama A&M. You have a trader in your household. You mentioned it before we got started. Can you just give us some context of your family history, your family legacy at historically Black colleges and universities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Hbcus are really the institutions that educated my family. As you mentioned, my dad is the only one who and I believe he's on the chat today and the webinar today but he attended Alabama State. My mom attended Alabama A&M in Oakwood. My oldest sister attended Hampton. My other sister attended Alabama A&M as well, and so you know my uncle attended Alabama A&M, was a drum major. So these are really, you know, family institutions. And when you talk about the legacy of HBCUs right, brittany's parents meeting there, terrell's parents meeting there, like that these are really legacy institutions and they're really the institutions that helped to build, you know, a Black middle class. Even today, as HBCUs only represent about 3% of the you know four-year nonprofit institutions, four-year nonprofit institutions in the country, they still make up about 25% of black STEM graduates, 50% of black lawyers and doctors, 80% of black judges and, on top of all of that, like they're doing the work of educating 60%, like 60% of HBCU student bodies are low-income students, so people who are eligible for federal Pell Grants.
Speaker 1:So you know they're still doing that sort of dealment work that they have historically done and you know that sort of legacy that they are providing, that foundation that they provide for the Black community and Black families is hard to understate. So I also want to to just ask you to share a little bit about like what was your experience as a student at Alabama A&M, or maybe even like what was it like going and I don't know if you did or you didn't.
Speaker 1:Did you go to homecoming at Alabama State and like what was that like? To maybe go to Alabama State homecoming with your dad but then have to go to an Alabama A&M homecoming as well, Like before you went to Alabama. Who did you root for before you went? An Alabama A&M homecoming as well, Like before you went to Alabama. Who did you root for before you went to Alabama?
Speaker 2:A&M, so a mix of places. So we were a military family so we were a little bit all over. But you know one of the things we lived in Montgomery and so we would go to, you know, we went to Alabama State's homecoming. My cousin was actually in the band at Alabama State, as was my other uncle. He was in the band at Alabama State.
Speaker 2:And that experience of you know, seeing the homecomings at Alabama State, seeing the homecomings at Alabama A&M, being in that Black college culture, going to the Magic City Classic before even enrolling at an HBCU, it just really kind of showed me that sort of energy around the institutions. A lot of people aren't, you know, they may not be exposed to the institution but you really see the energy around those schools. And then when I enrolled at A&M right, I think I write in the book about how before it was sort of my home by proxy, and once I enrolled there it really felt like my home I was able to find a community of folks who pushed me and challenged me. I was in the political science department, so under the umbrella of the Department of Behavioral Sciences, and so you know there were professors there from Dr Ronald Slaughter to Ms Stephanie Allen, who taught my African-American history course, to Ms Diane Wilkinson, who taught all my philosophy courses. Dr Emmanuel Obua, who taught African politics and Blacks in politics.
Speaker 2:That really nurtured me as a person. They weren't trying to say that you have to perform your Blackness in any sort of way, don't have to do any sort of extra thing. I just sort of be myself and learn and explore all of these different ideas and I think that was really enriching opportunity to be able to be in that environment, to be around folks you know from my classmates Wakita Tobar, who's now working as a, as a lawyer in Philadelphia. To you know Kevin Ferguson. To you know Adioto Tola, like Tolo, and just being around these classmates and a community of folks who pushed you and challenged you but then also had a good time right, who all knew how to have a good time and enjoy themselves. It was just an incredible experience and I would hope that anyone who was attending college now would be able to have a similar experience like that, because it really was, if you haven't had the HBC experience you haven't.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's a very singular, it is very much, very much so. And you know, I sometimes get mad because, like I don't want to say I get mad, I get a little bothered, because I went to A&T for undergrad, I went to Ohio State for my master's and I went to Texas for my doctorate. And every now and then, like a student from UT that was an undergrad while I was in grad school will say I thank God, ut Austin gave me an HBCU experience and I was like what? No, they just like, they just don't know. There's no reproduction of that at a PWI, an HSI, a tribal college, whatever. It's just it's not the same. It's not the same.
Speaker 2:It's. It's fundamentally different and I think it's. You know, the PWI experience as a black student at a PWI is it is a different experience. Of course you will have your, your community of folks. You know I went out to Texas Tech after Alabama A&M and there was a community, a really strong Black community there, but it was. It was a different experience than an HBCU experience because you were, you know when you're there, you're, you know there were.
Speaker 2:There were different things like the fact that Texas Tech wanted to be a R1 institution. It was one of the few institutions that wanted to be an R1, that did not have an Africana Studies program. It was a place where Black students made up about four or 5% of the student body there and so, yes, it's an engaged and active community that you're involved in. But it's not. If you look at a place like Langston University in Oklahoma, right Small institution, fewer than 2000 students, has about 1450 Black students who attend Langston University. The University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University combined only have about 200 more Black students than Langston University itself. So just thinking about the amount, like the vastness of the amount of Black people on those campuses and, in addition, to kind of how they're able to interact with each other is, you know, it's a different experience, a singular experience.
Speaker 1:That's right. I think about my experience and in a lot of ways as a student I got accelerated because the faculty members who were teaching the classes were my advisor, so I had to go see them. The classes were smaller, the culture was different. I could call like five professors from undergrad right now on the phone, and so I don't think that that is a similar experience that people get at other institutions, just based upon the history, the culture and the internal policies and structures of those institutions. So you mentioned a few of your professors that you had. Can you talk to me about how those relationships have endured and how those relationships have helped you to get to the point where you're a staff writer for the Atlantic and then you're writing this wonderful book? The State Must Provide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember very vividly this was January 2011. January 2011, I was working in the Department of Behavioral Sciences. I was a student assistant and I was just I remember we were having a lot of conversations about, ok, what is everybody doing this summer? And because, you know, there are all of these programs, from pre-law programs to summer undergraduate research fellowships to, you know, all of these different things that the department had cultivated and, you know, created a crop of things for students to apply to, and I was really interested in the time and voting ethics and sort of the ethics of voting. And because there had been a couple of big, you know, university professors who were like, well, you know, maybe it's not appropriate, like maybe people shouldn't always vote, and it struck me as something that was fundamentally flawed and I was really interested in studying that. And so my professor, ms Wilkinson, at A&M, really pushed me to apply to the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at UC Irvine. And that experience, that summer, sort of set me on a trajectory and I would have never known about this program, I would have never applied to this program if not for, you know, the faculty urging me along. And then, you know, I wouldn't have been accepted into that program if not for Dr Obua, who actually engaged his students in doing research projects and had us go down to a research conference at Samford University to present our research. And we were the only undergraduate students there were four of us I think it was me, Amanda Watley and two others who went down and presented our research projects at this conference for graduate students, and this was when we were in undergrad. And so to um, to have that um experience in that foundation of professors who were, who were always trying to push you to, to do the next thing, to go to the next level, um, and we're really sort of nurturing that, that was, um a special experience.
Speaker 2:And then, even now, um, you know, when I I finished the book and I was thinking of, you know, all of the people who helped me get to that point where I was, you know, actively writing a book, I reached out to Professor Allen, who you know I really credit with the books that she had us read during her African-American history course really made history, you know, engaging in a new way to me. And then also, you know, she would talk about the ways that our proximity to the past and our proximity to this history is actually not that far. It's like it's a very close, it's a tangible thing If you talk to your grandparents, if you're still able to talk to your grandparents, right.
Speaker 2:I write in the book about Section 256 in Alabama, the law that segregated public education in Alabama and that was passed in 1901. And so that's that's when my grandparents, parents, were, were alive. They were, they were alive when Alabama passed that law. And so just really making that history real and tangible, really making that history real and tangible, and the fact that they were sort of attaching that proximity, that physical piece to it I think that comes out in my writing is I try to write and make it tangible, make it something that people can feel, to make that proximity feel more immediate, and I really credit my professors at A&M for giving me that grounding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would add that the proximity to history is something interesting that you bring up, because I think there's history that all students get when they attend an HBCU specific to that institution. You don't get in your mainstream textbooks, right? I didn't know about the sitting movements until I got to A&T Like I didn't know, right. And so, as you're a student in Alabama A&M, like your proximity you're right there. Yes, like you're in it, you know what I mean. The dorm is named after some civil rights activists. Like you're in it. You know what I mean. The dorm is named after some civil rights activists. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:The other dorm is named after some president who was negotiating between the state and black people's freedom and had to be conservative in some areas and not so conservative in other areas. Just to make is that the book provided a lot more context for the policies that were going on at the time that made it difficult for HBCUs to be the history of the policies that have allowed for the inequities to happen in the past and persist even until today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. You know, going back to the sort of foundation and establishment of the state university systems we sort of recognize them today. You know it really starts with the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862. It sent these institutions to sort of far-flung places that were, you know, previously remote. So Ames, iowa, now has Iowa State University and Auburn now has Auburn University, and you know basically what that policy was was they gave states land expropriated from Native Americans that could be sold in order to fund an institution. How you get Penn State, michigan State, cornell is a land grant institution, but these institutions were not available for black students and only a few states actually created HBCUs in order to fill that void at the time. So, for instance, alcorn State was one of the original Black land grants founded in 1871. But the quirk there is that by 1871, they were given a guaranteed appropriation, $50,000 a year, for at least a decade.
Speaker 2:1875 comes around, the so-called Redeemers move back into public office in the state towards the end of the short reconstruction in Mississippi and they reduced that appropriation to $15,000 a year. A year later, 1876, they reduced the appropriation again to $5,500. Meanwhile the University of Mississippi's faculty is saying we will, actually we would rather close than enroll a Black student. And so, you see, you start to see the beginnings of that funding divide and that funding gap for students. And then you fast forward to 1890. I think that's when people really start to they, you know, a lot of HBCUs call themselves 1890 institutions. Of course, the North Carolina A&T is a is an 1890, alabama A&M is an 1890 as a land grant.
Speaker 2:But that that 1890 bill was really to give predominantly white institutions more money. They said that we are doing, we're doing a great job in doing what we were supposed to do educating white men, training white men. But you know, we need more money in order to to increase our capacity. And so the federal government ultimately ends up putting in a little quirk in the bill to say, okay, you can get this extra money, but you can't discriminate against black students. Um, you at least need to have a separate college for them. Um, and you know they say be a college or an institute.
Speaker 2:And ultimately, that's how, you know, states end up funding black colleges because most states would have rather, you know, spent money to fund another college rather than, you know, integrating their institutions. And those that did Iowa State University, you know they were one of the first states to accept that land grant and they didn't enroll their first black student until 1890. So you really start to see from those that make really the biggest injection of funds into higher education that the nation has ever seen Bigger than the GI Bill if you're kind of rating it with today's dollars that was the largest injection of funding in higher education and Black students were shut out of it. And so it's really the development from there of how you know the federal government and state governments have really sustained, maintained, defended. That is really sort of the examination from that.
Speaker 1:From that point is what the book is um hinging on yeah, so one one of the things that I don't know, I I I got into my feelings reading the book, because what? What you lay out is it's chess, right? It's like the, the state's white supremacist system, structures like, however we want to say it, racism is playing chess with justice, or playing chess with us, right? So OK, we'll give you this, but we're not really going to give you this. You're going to get this, but you're not really going to get this. You're going to get this, but you're not going to get this.
Speaker 1:And so, along the whole way, it's just they're trying to make it seem like they're doing something right, but they're really not doing the right thing, and I think what's beautiful about that is that HBCUs, many of them, were birthed out of somebody else trying to do the wrong thing, but yet instill, the things that they have done for us are amazing. So can you just tell us a little bit about how, how, like the chess moves that were played to ensure that black colleges up until now don't have the same type of funding as predominantly white institutions?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think one of the things that I learned, you know, in digging through newspaper archives, digging through old you know legislative budgets for the book, you know there were all of these inflection points where things could have been different, where they could have funded HBCUs where they actually did studies about. You know what it would take to to actually properly fund their institution. You know what it would take to to actually properly fund their institution. So the one that I typically mentioned because it's it's, you know, one of the more egregious ones. So Kentucky in the early 1900s brings down the sort of master teacher from from Hampton, william TB Williams, who taught at Hampton. He taught at Tuskegee. And they say you know, study our you know black college, tell us what we need to raise it up to to be like Tuskegee. Say you know, study our black college, tell us what we need to raise it up to be like Tuskegee.
Speaker 2:And you know he comes down, he looks at the campus and he gives them this really brutal report. He's like your girl's dorm is fire prone and doesn't have any fire escapes. Your boy's dorm's in a mud puddle. Your electrical plant doesn't have any power. Your buildings are old, the faculty is underpaid. The students are fantastic, the faculty is fantastic, the learning that is going on here is great, but you know it's going to take a lot to to. You know, ensure that this institution is not a liability in terms of, like, actually, people risking their lives in old buildings and places where you know there might be a fire. And, um, the state is like, well, we will spare no expense, but we only have $40,000 for this project, and um, so you can fix everything with that.
Speaker 2:And you know a way that I like to explain. It is like if they had done what they were supposed to do, then it's like buying a toothbrush, say, it's $3 and 50 cents to buy, you know, a pack of toothbrushes and you know that's you can do your routine maintenance. But if you don't have the money to buy that toothbrush, then it's going to turn into a cavity and then you have to go and get your filling. But if you don't have the money to go get a filling, you don't have insurance, then you know, sits for for longer and it becomes a root canal and now you're spending, you know, fifteen hundred dollars rather than three dollars and fifty cents, and so it's sort of the way that that inequity works is that it's sort of built, and each time I think it was.
Speaker 2:It was fascinating whether that was Ada Louis Simple Fisher saying that I wish that it had rained when this lawmaker came to our campus because he would have seen the way that our infrastructure is broken. Or you know black students in Mississippi saying that you know there's this sort of, there's a soggy state of campus, our green spaces don't drain, right, and so they're putting money in this air settlement in the 2000s to refurbish the infrastructure of the campus because of all of that deferred maintenance over time. And I think the lie that state legislators have liked to tell themselves is that, oh well, it's just going to take this year's appropriation and that's going to fix it. But that's not how deferred maintenance works. It's like, okay, yes, that can pay for this, but then you still have all of the day-to-day things that the institutions need to pay for. And you know we can talk about this a little bit later.
Speaker 2:But you know, when we see these sort of settlements nowadays, right where Maryland recently settled with its black colleges, five hundred and seventy seven million dollars over 10 years between the four colleges, that seems like a lot of money and it seems.
Speaker 2:It seems. But you know they brought in an expert who said they would be owed at least two point seven, three billion dollars, be owed at least $2.73 billion. That was sort of the minimum that the institutions would need. We've already seen what $500 million, split up several ways over a series of years, does for institutions. Mississippi that's exactly what they did in 2002. And the state hasn't even lived up to its settlement. It was supposed to create a $35 million endowment for the Black colleges there and they've only raised a million dollars to this point. So even like at a very granular level, the states aren't doing what they're supposed to do, even according to these settlements. But that really shows how that sort of inequity has you know that started at the beginning has just continued on because states haven't been willing to do the work or provide the funding to actually address it.
Speaker 1:So I think even myself as a graduate, it's important that I be reminded of why there are gaps between what our schools have and what other schools have. Sometimes, like people will say well, there's leadership issues, or it's the students, or you know how they do with black colleges, you know there's always that. But context and history matters, like that $2.7 billion matters, so I got it. This is kind of like a pivot, pivot, tangential question. One thing that I was all that kind of irked me because I'm not from north carolina, so y'all that are in the chat and all that stuff that from north carolina don't get on me. But I never understood and I want to know if this is the alabama end and I never understood why. Well, I get, I get it.
Speaker 1:But it bothered me that students at A&T will wear Duke stuff or Chapel Hill paraphernalia. But you go to A&T and those schools they won't even let us in, right? But there's a part of us that loves to still be attached to those predominantly white institutions, many of which were built by slaves. But we wear their stuff, they won't let us in there. Those predominantly white institutions, many of which were built by slaves, but we wear their stuff, they won't let us in there. If you go on campus like microaggressions, macroaggressions, so what was it? Did you have experiences like that at Alabama A&M and if so, how do? How do we shift the culture so that our students are more aware of the implications of them representing, maybe, in some ways, the institutions that have benefited from us not getting what we deserve?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I think you know a lot of. There were experiences like that at a&m and I think a lot of that, you know, hinges on sports culture. In all honesty, right, right, and you know it's like people have, there's this sort of cognitive dissonance happening where you can kind of know that your institution, that other institutions have this sort of legacy, this legacy of discrimination, but still, you know, be a fan of their sports team, right? So in the 1980s, when Bo Jackson won the Heisman, on the same, literally on the same day that he won the Heisman, a federal judge says that this is the most Auburn is the most segregated institution in the state. And so while people are praising Bo Jackson, praising the university for having Bo Jackson, they are also enrolling about 2% Black students. You fast forward to 2002, there were only about 5% Black students, and now at Auburn University, there are fewer Black students on campus at Auburn University than there were in 2002, when they had, you know, 4% or 5% Black students. And so it's interesting, and I think the more, and so it's interesting and I think the more you know there's been over the last couple of years. You've seen, you know prominent, you know high school recruits, you know, giving a serious look to HBCUs, some of them actually attending HBCUs. You know North Carolina A&T has a fantastic track program that really you know. Now you have, you know, jr Smith who's going to be on the golf team there, steph Curry's in a lot of stuff for Howard in terms of their golf program there.
Speaker 2:I think that the more if you sort of have that shift in college sports because a lot of people's allegiances to colleges is actually more based in the college sports culture than it is in in, you know, the actual attendance culture but the more you you have these institutions and their, their full capacity like they're, it's like not just thinking of it as, oh, like you know, it's an HBCU, it's sort of like this parochial offshoot of higher education, but actually think of it as central to like the rest of higher education, like this is a significant part of the higher education ecosystem, on par with, you know, alabama, on par with Auburn, on par with, you know, unc or wherever it might be. Then you start to see a shift in the culture of you know people saying, oh, actually, you know, I want this Norfolk State shirt, or, you know, or I'm at Norfolk State, I want this, I want this Virginia State shirt or, you know, maybe you know, buy some Alabama A&M stuff. You know, and I think that the more that you know HBCUs are having, we often have this conversation about HBCUs having a renaissance, and one of the renaissances that they actually are having is a renaissance of attention, where people are paying attention to the institutions. You know you are now seeing HBCUs.
Speaker 2:When I was first started covering HBCUs, you know a lot, there was, you know, hbcu Digest. There was, you know sort of the HBCU sports sites, but major outlets were not interested in covering HBCUs outside of something bad happening. And so what you were saying now is people really taking a second look and saying, oh, the vice president came from an HBCU. Oh, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin came from an HBCU. Oh, all of these celebrities that I didn't know came from HBCUs came from HBCUs. Now Chris Paul is wearing the gear to every, just about every game. Let me take a second look and see what's actually going on with these institutions. As people pay more attention, I think that the institutions will have that sort of renaissance that's necessary.
Speaker 1:That's good. I wanna get back into some more of the history, because we have some folks from Missouri here. I'm wondering if you could share the part about the book that is related to I don't know if I want to say the integration or the attempt at integration at Missouri.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that section. So it takes up basically an entire chapter. Well, it takes up basically an entire chapter. Well, it does take up an entire chapter. It's called the Tragedy of Lloyd Gaines. And Lloyd Gaines is from Water Valley, mississippi.
Speaker 2:He moved up to Missouri when he was a teenager with his family and graduated from high school in Missouri, ultimately ended up going to Harris Stowe College and then transferring over to Lincoln University of Missouri. So he went to both of the states HBCUs and he wanted to be a lawyer. You know it's one of the. As an aside, one of the interesting things about you know, the people whose names are now attached to these fights is their wants and desires as students are not too different from the wants and desires of students today. And so Lloyd Gaines, he wanted to be a lawyer and he wanted to be a lawyer in Missouri. So the best way he thought to do that was by attending law school in Missouri. But Missouri didn't have a law school for Black students. They were one of the several states that practiced this scheme of sending Black students out of state. Typically they would take money from the HBCU's budget to appropriate to sending students out of state so that they could attend graduate school. But he didn't want to do that. He wanted to attend school in the state of Missouri. And so the NAACP, alongside the NAACP, filed a lawsuit against the state of Missouri to say that, ok, you guys said that you wanted separate but equal, but you don't even have separate. Like, if you want to have separate but equal, first established separate, and the Supreme Court ultimately agrees and says, hey, if you want to you know you want to do this if you want to say Plessy v Ferguson is is what you wanted, then you at least need to have a separate option for black students, then you at least need to have a separate option for black students. And so Missouri ultimately tries to go through the motions of setting up a law school at Lincoln University of Missouri.
Speaker 2:And the real tragedy of Lloyd Gaines' story because the NAACP and Lloyd Gaines were going to sort of continue the fight, the tragedy of his story is he ultimately goes missing. And you know when I, when I first read his story, my thought was immediately oh my God, a mother lost her son, a family lost their brother, they lost, you know, a relative. And you really see in his story the way that these fights affected, the people who were fighting them. You know he writes a letter to his mom. You know the last letter that he ever sent to her, and you know this is after he's coming off a speech where he's talking to students and he's saying you know, you can, you can take on these fights, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:And really, meanwhile it's like weighing on him as well and he's like I'm, I'm just a man Like, and sometimes I wish I didn't take on the fight, but but now I'm in it, but I'm just a man, and that I think that we have this tendency to divorce the, the people involved in it, from, like, the, the general idea of the fight for equity and the fight for equality, when, when, in reality, the more that we can humanize these people, the more that we can see our own roles, and in the fights as well, Because you know they are, these were people who, who had years of their life you know I don't like to use words, you know gave up, but they had years of their life taken from them because the state would not, you know, do what it said it was going to do provide an equal education.
Speaker 2:And you know the title of the state must provide comes from a subsequent case where the Supreme Court said the state must provide an equal education for her as soon as it does for any other student, in accordance to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. So it's saying the state must provide that equal education and they were robbed of that. And so every day that the higher education system is not equitable, every day that these black institutions which continue to perform this remarkable work, community colleges which perform this remarkable work, are underfunded, that is robbing people of, you know, their constitutional rights.
Speaker 1:In some ways started mentioning it before. Can you talk a little bit about the shortcomings of the states in trying to fix some of the damage that had been done in the past?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of states right. There's still several states that have not proven to the federal government that they desegregated their higher education systems because of how they have treated their Black colleges and black education. But the states that have, you know, still have lingering issues. So so Mississippi, for example, is one of the states that settled with its black colleges and the people who brought up the lawsuit in order to get out of federal monitoring. And it's it's an incomplete settlement.
Speaker 2:In the 1980s, north Carolina did the same thing. You know, right after there was the transition from the Carter administration, when the department, the old Department of Health, education and Welfare had been rejecting North Carolina's desegregation plan, as soon as it switched over to the Reagan administration, the Reagan administration said oh no, actually North Carolina, this looks, this looks good. And a former Carter administration official told the New York Times you know, this looks less like a settlement to help these institutions and more like a joint defense between the US government and the state of North Carolina of everything they've done in the past. And so you know, you really start to with these settlements. They were, you know, in a lot of cases imperfect settlements, and so states, states, have tried to get a bargain in order to to sort of absolve themselves of their, their past issues, of the vestiges of racism and discrimination in their higher education system, in their higher education system. You know, even now, right when North Carolina A&T made the move to become, you know, a Carnegie designated R1 institution or, you know, high research activity producing institution, it wasn't given any money to make that move.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, when two predominantly white institutions did so in the state of North Carolina and this is in the, you know, the midaughts, so this is in this century when two other predominantly white institutions made that move after North Carolina A&T did, they were given $10 million a piece to make that transition. And so you still see the ways that states are not equalizing funding. And North Carolina A&T, they're working now to get that money back. I think that to this point, they've been able to get 2.5 million. But you think about what the other institutions have been able to build on Like wealth, doesn't? You know wealth doesn't stagnate Wealth, it builds on itself. And so you know that's $10 million they could have received in 2004, 2005 and built on, but instead, you know they received two point five million, and I think it was 2017. And now they're back at the legislature trying to get the rest of that, that money that they were, they were shorted out of.
Speaker 1:Man, I think that that's related to your experience that you write about at the beginning of the book when you talk about Alabama A&M and then the University of Alabama Huntsville. The University of Alabama Huntsville was correct me, if I'm wrong, was like 50 years old or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was 60 years old when I got to A&M.
Speaker 1:yeah, Like my mom my mom is older than the college, you know what I'm saying Like and yet, and still, alabama, a&m, alabama State, don't don't have comparable sort of facilities funding that Alabama University, alabama, huntsville has.
Speaker 1:That stood out to me in the book because I always wonder, like, why is it that they have these universities that are relatively new, that are doing better than like my HBCU that had been around since the 1800s and I never, I never, had an answer for that. And so that's one of the things that I appreciate about what you wrote in the book, because it's it's not just a history, it's a timeline, like it takes you from what happened back then and it brings you all the way into what's happening today. And so I'm wondering, like I want to think about what's what's happening today and then also, like what's happening, what you see maybe are some solutions for the future. So can you speak about, like the Renaissance or what maybe not even be a Renaissance, of philanthropy at historically black colleges and universities and how that may or may not be enough, and then we'll get into talking about, like what you see, some of the solutions being yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2:You know, 2020 by any um, really by any measure, was a, you know, landmark year for, for giving, philanthropic giving to hbcus. Um, uh, where you have. You know, like mackenzie scott, you know, literally just herself, gave several institutions the largest single donation that they had ever received in their institutional histories. But, of course, that was unevenly applied. Alabama A&M did not receive such a donation. It actually just received its largest ever single donation just this past week, and so it was two point two million dollars.
Speaker 2:But you know, the thing that I always caution with thinking that about, about, you know, philanthropy and large, these sort of large gifts, is that there's a sort of ebb and flow to philanthropy, especially at HBCUs. Because if you, you know, going back to the founding of HBCUs, some were founded by state entities. A lot were founded by, you know, wealthy Northern philanthropists, white philanthropists, or church associations. The American Missionary Association played a large role in the establishment of several HBCUs, several, you know. The African Methodist Episcopal Church established several and in the late 1800s you had this contraction where that energy around giving to HBCUs waned and the institutions, you know they really face that repercussion when the wealthy individuals decided okay, actually, this isn't serving me as much as I thought it was. Anymore I'm going to back out. And so one, I absolutely applaud it, but I also think that it's not a sort of substitute. It shouldn't be a substitute, it should be a both and with sustainable resources, from both state and federal sources for public institutions but also, you know, for the private institutions. It's really a matter of they're sort of building their endowments to a place where they are financially sustainable and viable into the future. And so and you know, there are a couple of markers of institutions that will struggle, and it's like fewer than a thousand students, fewer than an endowment that's smaller than $50 million, you know, located in a rural or impoverished area, and a lot of, you know, private HBCUs fall into those categories, and so it's really, you know, beefing up their reserves so that they're able to weather storms in the same way that a lot of private, that some private, you know, predominantly white institutions are.
Speaker 2:But you know, going forward right. So this year alone, thanks to some of the stimulus packages, you know, and the COVID relief packages, hbcus will get about three times the amount of funding from the federal government that they would get in a traditional year. So, across about 15 programs. Hbcus get about a million a billion dollars a year from the federal government. This year they're going to get about three billion and I think one of the first steps is to make that funding recurring. That funding should be something that the hbcus can rely on um to continue performing the work that that they perform.
Speaker 2:I think that you know there's also you know a lot on the campaign trail, um, because I covered education and national politics at the atlantic, so I was able to cover the campaign last year.
Speaker 2:Um, on the campaign trail, you know a lot of the candidates were talking about their free tuition or tuition-free models for higher education and at the end of all of that, a lot of them started wrapping HBCUs both public and private into their free tuition and you know debt-free college models and I think that that work is important as well Because you know, if you're looking at a state like North Carolina, where 25% of Black students who attend college in North Carolina do so at one of the five public HBCU, or who attend public colleges in North Carolina do so at one of the five HBCUs, and then I think it's 52 percent of the black students who attend college in North Carolina do so at one of the community colleges and I think it's like 22 percent do so at the predominantly white, and there are 12 predominantly white institutions and they're serving a smaller population than these five historically public, historically black colleges.
Speaker 2:And so I think the more that we can sort of understand the role that these institutions continue to play and the more that lawmakers put their money behind that important role, rather than just talking about how HBCUs are important and they've historically important institutions like, yes, they're historically important, but they're also currently important, they are also still playing a vital role for black people and Black community. And so I think that making that funding recurring, also states owning up to their responsibility to Black education where they have shorted it before, is important. And I also think it's important for the federal government to actively start to take a look again at what states are doing and whether or not they're fulfilling their obligations under federal law yeah, thank you for that at what states are doing and whether or whether or not they're fulfilling their obligations under, you know, under federal law.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:There was a point that you made earlier that I didn't connect or I never thought about before, and it was when the states would take money that should have been allocated to the historically Black colleges to send Black students to Northern PWIs that had the graduate schools and professional schools to get their education.
Speaker 1:And I was like that hit me. And it hit me because that's the money for us that should be going into our institutions from us, because we're going to our own institutions but it's getting siphoned off and going into a predominantly white institution that is allowing the student to come in there, but it's not like they had to pay the graduate assistantship or for the PAs you want to come here for free, it's not hurting us. That's like interest convergence, and so I've been wrestling with this notion for like two or three years now, in that the current state of and I'm not saying you said this and I'm not saying you said this in the book, so I don't wanna get you in trouble but I feel like the current state of diversity and inclusion and higher education as it pertains to race is in a lot of ways like a reverse reparations for predominantly white institutions, because I mean, look, I benefited from it because all my graduate school was paid for and it was all that white schools.
Speaker 1:So I get that, but it just it doesn't make sense to me that I bet if, if you were to do some more research, you would find that there are african-american studies programs right at predominantly white institutions that have higher budgets than entire hbcus and teach less black students, and and so I wrestle with that. Right, I know that, like we, integration in terms of the equity that it can produce. That's the narrative that we've. We've been sort of told, but some days I'm like, listen, we need to stop diversity inclusion at PWIs and just give the money to the black politics because they don't do a good job of it anyway. It was like why are we giving them money for something that they've never proven to do, to do good at?
Speaker 2:So I just want your thoughts, your thoughts on that, and I think one of the issues that I have sometimes with with diversity initiatives at some institutions is whether or not that, that commitment to like, whether it goes beyond simply saying that, well, we have a diversity equity inclusion initiative now and we're trying to build a more inclusive culture, whether it goes beyond just saying that to actual resources for the community is actually enrolling students. Right, they're, like, you know, in the same way that in jobs like, oh, we have a diversity equity inclusion initiative, but we still don't hire Black people, but we still don't hire, you know, brown people. You know we're still kind of pulling from the same select student body of people or the same kind of crop of individuals. For example, you know, several banks over the last year have really said, hey, you know, we want more, we want to launch this diversity equity inclusion initiative, we want to help the, help the community. But as soon as the Biden administration said, hey, we have a four billion dollar program to help out black farmers because they've been discriminated against by both banks and the federal government, the banks wrote a letter to the Department of Agriculture and said wait, wait, wait. If you pay off that, we're going to lose money. And so like was the initial? It's like did it help you see the role that you play in discrimination or was it just kind of a? Okay, we've checked the box. And so that's the thing that I ended up sort of wrestling with is are these institutions actually committed to to that work or are they just sort of checking a box?
Speaker 2:And the way I'll loop that back to higher ed is you know several institutions over the last several years have done these sort of investigations into their relationships to slavery, into their relationships to segregation and Jim Crow. And you know they may rename a building, they may take down a statue. You know they'll issue a formal apology and that's not to say that. You know renaming buildings and taking down statues isn't important because those monuments matter and how you remember and reconcile with history matters in a deep way. But you know is like is there room for the institutions such as Ole Miss, which is keeping black students out, when Alcorn State was being stripped of funding by the state? Do they have a responsibility to aid the historically Black college with some of that money that they were making when they were keeping Black students out? And you know the institutions, a lot of institutions, met down in Mississippi a couple of years ago to have sort of start the beginning of that conversation, but I think it does.
Speaker 2:There needs to be a conversation about, you know, the money that your institution has been able to make. Georgetown, for instance, sold 272 people to keep its institution afloat. Does it have a responsibility not only to help those people but also to, you know, advance Black education beyond its own walls? So if a place like Auburn, which has, you know, 5% Black students, if they say, you know, we have this diversity, equity, inclusion initiative, what does that mean in terms of how you are helping the institutions that are enrolling more Black students, not only in percentage but also in sheer number, than you are? So, yeah, I think that that's an important question and you know, as you know, hbcus are able.
Speaker 2:You know, if HBCUs are able to receive that funding so they're able to enhance their graduate programs, they're able to grow into R1 institution, or you have to think about the fact that these institutions were discriminated against for so long.
Speaker 2:North Carolina A&T discriminated against for so long and is still able to have such a robust offering of graduate programs. So imagine what they would have been able to do if they were not discriminated against if they did receive the matching funding for all of those years, like Tennessee State. The state of Tennessee just said that they've owed Tennessee State between $150 million and $500 million over a 50-year period, just from, like, one or two programs that they were shorting the funding from. So what would that institution be today if it were able to receive that funding that the University of Tennessee did, that Middle Tennessee State University did? And I think the more that we start to ask those questions and the more both lawmakers and administrators at predominantly white institutions really grapple deeply with what retribution for their legacies actually is, I think you know the more we have those conversations, the better off we will be. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking about how do we get more money to historically black colleges? I was thinking to myself. I was like you know was it was named? Ray Williams was the head basketball coach at UNC. He just retired. I'm like why don't, why don't we just tax athletics? And I mean, I just look at it like so, let's say, the administrator, a middle tier administrator at UNC, probably makes two hundred thousand dollars a year. So I would say everyone in athletics that makes over two hundred thousand dollars a year would say everyone in athletics that makes over two hundred thousand dollars a year, every dollar after that two hundred thousand dollars gets taxed by the state in half and goes to the black colleges. You know like because sports that's.
Speaker 1:That's why people at a&t used to wear chapel hill. I would be okay with those at a&t wearing chapel hill stuff if if they're you know what I mean yeah, and I, I think that you know that is.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean I I actually hadn you know that is. I mean I actually hadn't thought of that one. But I mean for a place like you know, for a college football coach, say, who's making, like you know, $3 million or $2 million or however much it is, that would actually move a significant chunk of money to HBCUs. I think also, if you're thinking about how, in state university systems, sometimes the way that endowments are pooled, maybe there is a sort of endowment share between those, or you can only use it for X thing, but there are a lot of unrestricted bequests at these institutions that they've been able to build over over time, so so perhaps there's a way that that can be shared with with the HBCUs. You know, I think I may have made this point about Mississippi right, but they made that settlement with with the state. That was, you know, 17 years, $500 million between three colleges where the University of Mississippi can make $500 million in five years of private donations. And so you know, thinking about, you know how to level the playing field of Philip and Papa giving alongside leveling the playing field of funding to the institutions from the state is an incredibly important conversation to have.
Speaker 2:It's always difficult to know the way that philanthropy is going to flow when we are currently in a moment where philanthropy is really targeted towards HBCUs. But if you're looking, you know the Chronicle of Philanthropy has a database of you know the top gifts to. You know all, really all sectors, but you can break it down into colleges and universities and even though you had that last year where there were these massive gifts, this year if you look at the top 100 gifts to colleges and universities, I think there are two HBCUs that are in that top 100 for gifts above $5 million. And so you know that one year doesn't absolve or doesn't sort of fix that historical discrimination. And I think if HBCUs are able to and philanthropists are willing to sort of continue that giving, that's the thing it's like.
Speaker 2:It can't just be that one time Injection has to continue in the same way that it has continued for PWIs, right? Michael Bloomberg gave something like $1.2 billion in one donation to Johns Hopkins. Think about what that would do, you know, even if you were doing $50 million donations to each HBCU, what would that $1.2 billion do for these institutions? That sort of transformational gift? What would that do for the institutions. So ensuring that those philanthropy dollars aren't just one-time things, that they're recurring, but then also looking for innovative ways to sort of level the playing field in the state in terms of equity.
Speaker 1:I think about the solutions that you point out in the book. Um, as you can tell, like I'm all into like HBCU stuff. So, um, I remember watching the documentary on PBS. Tell them we are rising. There's a, there's a part in the documentary I think it was Yale and Yale. They were going to build an HBCU in somewhere in the new England States.
Speaker 1:Yale was like we're not having it, we're not they. They literally shut down an institution before it could even exist. And so I think about some of the data coming from the University of California system. Right, the amount of Black students that they have in their university system-wide is just abysmal. Right, but it's a West Coast school HBCU thing really didn't make it to the West Coast like that. And I'm wondering, as part of this repair, as I've heard you say before, is it in addition to looking at the historically Black colleges that we have now and ensuring that they have equitable funding and support, but is it also a possible solution? Or what do you think about a possible solution just to build more Black colleges? To look at like, think about the history of the institutions that have made moves against us and hold them accountable by asking them to build really good institutions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it might be difficult. Now, I mean, it was, of course, politically difficult. And that was when, you know, william Lloyd Garrison and all of them in 1831 are like you know, they're in New Haven and they're saying, hey, we would like to establish this college that is not far away from from Yale. And yeah, they did, they had a town, they had a town hall meeting. You know, basically, like three days later they were like, actually, no, we're, we're not going to, we're not going to do that.
Speaker 2:But I think you know, if you look at a state like California, it's like you have institutions. So there's like a difference between, you know, historically black college and like predominantly black institutions. So like Chicago State, for example, was you know it's a predominantly Black institution. I think you know, since you have these institutions already in place with large shares of Black students, I think some of this comes down to actually funding the institutions where Black students are enrolling. So if that's the community colleges, it's funding the community colleges so that they have a path towards, you know, the 400-year institutions that you should also be funding in a way that is equitable. So several states have moved towards these like performance-based funding models, and you know some of them have equity in mind and others do not, where you know that the sort of legacy is propulsive. So an institution that has momentum, like the University of Kentucky, both in terms of, like, overall enrollment, in terms of the funding that it has, so that it's able to provide robust supports for students so that they're able to be successful, and that means that they have, like, higher graduation rates and different things like that they're rewarded with more funding because you know they have higher graduation rates, because they have more students. And an institution which may need more funding in order to provide those robust supports for students may be docked or dinged for funding because you know their graduation rate may be a little bit lower.
Speaker 2:I think that those funding models should be construed and, you know, equitably reimagined so that the institutions that serve large shares of black-income students, that that is being taken into account when you are thinking about the ways that you are funding these institutions, not just the institutions with momentum, but the institutions that serve, you know, marginalized populations. I think one of the last things there is that in that construction. So where they're actually funding these institutions, you know we see this broad divide now where it's like this, enhanced stratification. So where it's like not outright segregation, it is stratification so that the institutions with the most wealth, with the most resources, enroll the fewest Black students. And it's almost a one-to-one. You can kind of go down the list of the institutions with more Black students typically have less dollars to where you have this sort of $5 billion gap at this point between funding for Black students and white students.
Speaker 2:And so I think if we move towards that sort of equitable redistribution of state finances on a budget, you know, on a budget line, you know, one to one year over year, I think that you know there may not be the need for new black colleges, but I think that would actually encourage institutions to to fulfill these sort of higher ideals that they profess to write. Higher education Loves to talk about. You know those the higher like enlightenment ideals and what it provides for society. But this would actually, when you kind of attach dollars to that, that's when they start to own up to you know, that legacy that they're. You know that they often try to forget about.
Speaker 1:I want to ask this next question in two parts, the first being what would it look like for historically Black colleges and universities to have this book be part of like a freshman orientation or a freshman curriculum and things like that? So, in addition to your book, you know, maybe how would you, would you, how would you like to see that presented at an HBCU so that the students can get context for where they're learning? But then also if you were building out like a class, if you go back to.
Speaker 1:Alabama A&M and teach a class about the state must provide in addition to this. But what other books, books? What other sort of sources would you include in that curriculum?
Speaker 2:yeah, um. So one of the first I think I have it over here somewhere, um, uh, I don't see it, but it's shelter in the time of Storm by Jelani Favors, who actually, I think just came over to North Carolina A&T, but it's a fantastic book. It's really sort of it digs into the sort of second curriculum that HBCU students have historically been able to receive from the faculty in terms of how to navigate a world that is not, you know that that is set up for them, to how to actually navigate their place in America. Another one would be the origins for federal support and higher education, by Roger L Williams, which really digs into how, you know, the federal government became involved in higher ed, how higher education institutions that receive funding from the federal government are supposed to be supported and have historically been supported. I think that the book ends up being in conversation with. One of the books that I really leaned on in this, really for that early reconstruction period, was, you know, wb dubois um, black reconstruction. I think that that's a book that also, um ends up, ends up factoring into the conversation um, uh, reparations and reconciliation by uh, where's that one? So, uh, reparation and reconciliation by christy smith. Sorry, there's a light on it.
Speaker 2:Um, the rise and fall of integrated higher education is another one that uh, it actually digs into. I and I you know one of the, the institutions that is actually a character throughout the entire book, is actually not hbcu and it's berea college. Um, and Berea was the first integrated co-educational college in the South, founded in 1855 by a Presbyterian minister, and I think one of the this book really gets into the ways that the state has a certain intentionality and breaking up such institutions. And not only that, but and it talks about philanthropists and their commitment to HBCUs and Black education and how that waned, whether it was the American Missionary Association or others. So I think that those books I think that was what four books, those four books alongside the State, must Provide kind of form, the outlines. But you know, then there are dissertations. Catherine Wedel has a fantastic dissertation about the Second Morrill Act and the conversation that was happening around the Second Morrill Act. So I think that there are between a mix of those dissertations and papers alongside those books would really, if I was building out a course for, you know, students to understand the ways that the institutions have historically been underfunded but also the ways that they have enriched students, because I think one of the things that I was actually so interested in with Dr Fabers' book was how they enrich their student populations.
Speaker 2:And I I did a story, you know, a couple of years ago about, about North Carolina and T and the day that the national guard, you know, came to campus at at auntie and and, and, and you know I talked to Jelani about that and talked to him about the activism on the campus at A&T and how that environment fostered, you know, you know activist energy and and you know people who are pushing for civil rights and you know it's, it's really so.
Speaker 2:It's like to understand the institutions and their, their totality. You know we talked at the very beginning about the beauty of attending an HBCU and how it's like to understand the institutions and their, their totality. You know, we talked at the very beginning about the beauty of attending an HBCU and how it's a singular experience because of the ways that the faculty pours into you, because of the way that your, your fellow students, you know, interact with each other, and then it's just like you know, you have a lot of fun and you have the parties and things as well, but the intellectual uh experience alongside that, that sort of nurturing environment is, you know, a remarkable experience.
Speaker 1:I want to want to say, still thinking about students. Let's say we're going younger than college students. Um, how do you, how would you have these conversations with children in K-12? And I think it would be a great recruitment tool just in general, just to give them some context for where they may be going later on in life. But how would you see this being integrated in K-12?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think by focusing on there are points in the book where I talk about the work that HBCUs you know several points in the book where I talk about the work that HBCUs did in terms of educating Black folks when other places wouldn't, and that they still do in educating Black people when other places won't, and also, how you know, for a lot of people it's like HBCUs aren't just like.
Speaker 2:This isn't my fallback institution. This is an institution that I actively wanted to go to and I think that a lot of that is attached to the legacy of these institutions and the important work that they did to the alumni base Not only the old alumni base, but the current alumni base. Not only the old alumni base, but the current alumni base. I think I might've mentioned Mandela Barnes was at Alabama A&M not long before I was at Alabama A&M and is now Lieutenant Governor in Wisconsin, so like Vice President Kamala Harris coming from Howard. So it's not just like the select HBCUs that are producing talented alumni, that are educating a robust student body, but it's all of these HBCUs. So I think if students in K-12 learned more about the legacy of these institutions and knew more about them, I think that they would be. You know, that would encourage them to want to take a second look at the institution and ultimately attend.
Speaker 1:And I'm just surprised. Sometimes I meet young people in our community and they don't even know what Black colleges are. It's like they're missing a whole thing. Even if you decide not to go the fact that you don't know what it is you miss out on an opportunity to go to a homecoming Right On a college tour or to go see a battle of the bands or anything like that. Right, you may know the names of some of the institutions, but you may have have no context for knowing that that institution is a historically black college and that that is meaningful, knowing that that institution is a historically Black college and that that is meaningful. So I want to get to the one question that we have in the Q&A and that is are you aware of anyone who is leading at the federal level supporting reparations for historically Black colleges? Or maybe just more broadly, like just support for HBCUs in terms of policy and things like that, if not outright reparations? Yeah, so the co-chair of the bipartisan HBCUs in terms of policy and things like that, if not outright reparations?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the co-chair of the bipartisan HBCU caucus in Congress is Alma Adams, representative Alma Adams, from North Carolina, and she has really been a force in terms of, you know, presenting legislation to help the institutions. Senator Cory Booker has also been really adamant about supporting the institutions. As far as anything that sort of looks like reparations for the institutions, there's not something that's approaching the level of support that would start that sort of reparations conversation, but I think that it is an important one to begin to have. So it's like it's not only additional partnerships with, you know, federal government institutions, but it is also, I think, that there's space for the federal government to acknowledge its role as, as Heather McGee puts it right, public policy created the racial inequities that we recognize today, and only public policy will fix it. So I think it's important for more lawmakers like Representative Adams, I know that you know Senator Doug Jones. Actually, when he was still former Senator Doug Jones, when he was still on Capitol Hill, he was a major proponent of HBCUs. Of course, because there's so many in Alabama, representative Terry Sewell is also doing a lot for the HBCUs. Of course, because there's so many in Alabama, representative Terry Sewell is also doing a lot for the HBCUs in the state.
Speaker 2:I also think there is a significant role even beyond the federal level. There are several lawmakers in Pennsylvania actually now that are fighting for enhanced resources for their HBCUs and they've had to stave off several times pushes to close their HBCUs. And, interestingly enough, pennsylvania is one of the several states that has not proven to the federal government that it's desegregated its higher education institutions because of how it's treated Cheney University, how it's treated Lincoln University. And so I think the more state lawmakers like those in Pennsylvania, the more federal lawmakers like Representative Alma Adams continue to push and make people realize that this isn't just past discrimination. This discrimination is ongoing and it needs to be addressed. I think the better the HBCUs will be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's one more question in the Q&A have there been attempts or any form of support from financial investment institutions that are predominantly African-American owned? So Harlem Capital, other venture capital funds, private equity, angel investors, what have you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think private equity has started to get involved with HBCUs.
Speaker 2:I mean, it really kind of that private equities involvement actually kind of started with Robert Smith's investment at Morehouse and so that's been very recent though, and I think that there is a role for kind of private investment and angel investors to play and um funding for HBCUs.
Speaker 2:But, um, again, I think my my biggest caution there is that, you know, outside funding um is fantastic and is necessary, um, but I am uh, seeing as state and federal actors crafted the environment that allowed this discrimination to flourish as well as took part explicitly in the discrimination Right. We have, like Amos Hall, a lawyer for Ed Louis Simple Fisher, saying that you know it's not our fault that you created this separate and unequal system and you know, if it's expensive, that's that, that's not our problem, it's it's, it's your job to fix it. And so I think you know, I, I do, I put a lot of the onus on on state and federal lawmakers to begin to address that inequity. And if you know venture capital is, is able to help out in that, then then it'll be significant. But there has been, you know, in recent years, a sort of growing interest from, you know small and eventual capital firms and some Black-owned federal capital firms to start to address some of that inequity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us here today. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for joining this episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite's Black Book Discussions. If you like this episode, feel free to subscribe, give five stars or leave a positive comment. As I mentioned in the introduction, this episode is part of a special series featuring voices from historically black colleges and universities. This is part of a larger effort to support the From A&T to PhD Endowed Scholarship in North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, an effort that I co-founded with two friends of mine who are also on their doctoral journeys. If you would like to support this effort, please review the show notes to make a donation to the endowment. Thank you, you.