On college campuses across the county, racial tensions have been boiling over. From coast to coast, demonstrations are taking place at Ivy League schools like Yale and Columbia, and big state schools like the University of Kansas. Administrators have resigned at the University of Missouri and Claremont McKenna College in California due to widespread student accusations that they were indifferent to concerns about their schools' racial climates.
In light of these stories, WNYC's Jami Floyd wondered whether these recent controversies would lead more African-American students to consider attending one of the nation's Historically Black Colleges, or HBCUs. They were created in the aftermath of the Civil War with the intention of serving the black community. Howard University and Tuskegee University are among the best known HBCUs, but there are more than 100 in the country.
At the New York Urban League's Black College Fair in Harlem, Floyd found that while many parents and mentors were encouraging their children to attend an HBCU in order to build a sense of community and avoid the institutionalized racism of predominantly white schools, their children don't see it that way. Many of the students said that while they would consider HBCUs, a school's racial makeup wasn't a prime consideration. They felt that race is not the issue that it once was, and that hard work and perseverance would see them through, no matter what school they chose to attend.