Jelani M. Favors came across a prayer in the archives of Jackson State University’s student newspaper, The Blue and White Flash, submitted by a then student, Onezimae Clark, and addressed to members of her 1945 graduating class. Clark prayed that God would give prospective teachers inspiration and help them “fight for justice for all.” They needed to do that, she wrote, because otherwise “there will be so few leaders and great men and women of tomorrow that the progress of our race will be impeded.”
Favors, an assistant professor of history at Clayton State University, was doing research for his dissertation, which would later be expanded into a new book, Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism (University of North Carolina Press).
For Favors, the prayer was a call to action. It showed that Clark wanted to be not only a teacher but also one of many change agents for black Americans. He wondered: Who were her teachers? What was she reading? How did someone who was trained to become a teacher also feel the charge to fight for black Americans through her work in the classroom?
The history of black colleges offers a completely different narrative. These were spaces where students were emboldened, where they were encouraged.
He kept digging into how students like Clark at black colleges and universities had been taught the values of activism. In his book, Favors argues that historically black colleges and universities played an important role in shaping black activists through a second curriculum that made social change a priority. Understanding that history today, when those colleges are often plagued with financial uncertainty, is more important than ever.
Favors spoke recently with The Chronicle about campus activism, the importance of the humanities, and how institutions can work for change.
You said that at first you weren’t inclined to study student activism. When did that shift?
I took a class, “History of Black Education,” at Ohio State University. I came across seminal and classic books in the field. Reading those books really gave me a better understanding of black education, but I still didn’t find any comprehensive, thoroughly researched material on black colleges. Then I came across The White Architects of Black Education, by William Watkins. He took a completely different angle on the legacy of black colleges, an analysis that for the most part I disagreed with. It sparked my interest.
What was that analysis?
His analysis was consistent with what many scholars had assumed, that these institutions were deeply conservative and conformative, that you had these totalitarian administrators who were beholden to white administrators, and that they essentially shut down protests.
None of that answered how black-student activism exploded out of these campuses in the 1960s. There’s this massive gap in understanding this generation of activists. How were they nurtured? How were they molded? How were they trained? My work and research tried to fill that gap, refute the notion of these institutions as conservative spaces, and begin to understand them as radicalized spaces, really militarized spaces.
You write that in the decades before the civil-rights movement, black colleges reached a boiling point and began to “bear radical fruit.” Do you think that black colleges will reach a point of intense activism again?
I certainly hope so. These institutions have been saddled with enormous burdens, some historic in nature, going back to their deliberate underfunding. Many struggle to keep their doors open. Bennett College was a hotbed for activism. It helped to shape and prime the atmosphere of activism within Greensboro, which exploded with sit-ins in 1960. Bennett has this beautifully profound history, but yet it was struggling. They’re not alone. Whether it’s about funding or issues concerning academics and STEM versus the humanities, these issues have threatened these institutions’ ability to serve as catalysts.
At Bennett and Howard University, for example, the student activism lately has largely centered on helping students at those institutions, or helping the institution. Will HBCU campus activism continue to head inward?
A lot of activism has turned to internal issues. That is not necessarily bad. There are a number of internal issues that need to be addressed and corrected. But when you look at the high point of student activism amongst HBCU students, these students were extremely unselfish in terms of looking outward. I’m hopeful that we will get students to look at social, political, or economic issues that affect not just their campuses but our country, our world.
A lot is undermined by the promotion of STEM fields. We don’t train and teach students to think critically about the world, but to really plant seeds of selfishness within them to focus on their careers and take a much more individualistic approach. Do you ignore STEM fields bringing in the millions that these institutions desperately need, or do you try to find ways to nurture humanities? STEM versus the humanities — these are critical issues which HBCUs are confronted with.
Many HBCUs are struggling financially. It’s an even bigger problem considering how they play this important role of fostering activism. How can leaders get this message of social activism across?
The start is embracing history. I hope that the book brings activism transforming the political landscape of this country to the forefront. That’s the legacy of black colleges. I’ve been appalled at news stories highlighting students from predominantly white institutions in the 1970s and ’80s, showing them in blackface, celebrating racial violence, and the Klan’s legacy. The history of black colleges offers a completely different narrative. These were spaces where students were emboldened, where they were encouraged, where they were inspired to engage in change. If HBCUs can capitalize on that and get more students to these institutions, not just black but white, Hispanic, Asian, and others, they could expose them to the history and legacy of the second curriculum.
Almost two years ago, Howard University’s president, Wayne A.I. Frederick, came under fire after he met with the Trump administration and other HBCU leaders at the White House, and later for having James Comey, the former FBI director, as a guest lecturer. Did part of that criticism stem from the narrative, as you write, that HBCU presidents betray student activists and cave in to financial pressure?
One of the historic Catch-22s of being a college president is that you are tasked with keeping the doors open, but also strengthening the institution’s economic viability. A number of students who I interviewed said that they viewed these men as men who embraced black politics, men who embraced the rhetoric of transformational change. The movement challenged them to re-evaluate their positions. They wanted to keep their jobs, but also believed that if they didn’t change and harden that perhaps the institution would shutter.
Fast forward to this meeting, you see a room full of HBCU presidents meeting with Donald Trump. Many of them are there because they were compelled to act on surviving. This is something that they have to do. It looks bad, and black-college alumni as well as black students took them to task. It was one of the worst PR moments for black-college presidents in the most recent years. A number of presidents have felt compelled to take the heat while strengthening their school’s financial stability.
So do HBCU presidents have a tougher job than presidents at traditionally white institutions?
I’m not sure. The legacy, in terms of underfunding, the legacy of systematic discrimination, looms large. That’s not something that many other predominantly white institutions have to deal with. The type of problems that HBCUs are often confronted with are systemic. It calls for a greater conversation.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz is breaking-news editor. Follow her on Twitter @FernandaZamudio, or email her at fzamudiosuarez@chronicle.com.
