HBCUs - Blaqly https://blaqly.com Latest Black News and Gossips Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:12:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Mostly White HBCUs? Yep, They’re Real — And In West Virginia https://blaqly.com/sub/mostly-white-hbcus-yep-theyre-real-and-in-west-virginia/ https://blaqly.com/sub/mostly-white-hbcus-yep-theyre-real-and-in-west-virginia/#respond Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:12:59 +0000 https://blaqly.com/sub/mostly-white-hbcus-yep-theyre-real-and-in-west-virginia/ Source: fotoguy22 / Getty Did y’all know there are at least two historically Black colleges in America (West Virginia to be specific) ...

The post Mostly White HBCUs? Yep, They’re Real — And In West Virginia first appeared on Blaqly.

]]>

Source: fotoguy22 / Getty

Did y’all know there are at least two historically Black colleges in America (West Virginia to be specific) that are predominantly white?

Now, you probably read the above sentence and said to yourself: “Nah, that can’t be right. How are they HBCUs if their student body isn’t Black? What do you think the “B” stands for? It ain’t ‘bring on the white folks.’”

Well, apparently, for all the griping white people do about DEI, affirmative action, reverse discrimination and the very existence of Black institutions — all of which only exist because Black people have been historically excluded from so many institutions that white people had full access to—some Caucasian administrators don’t mind taking advantage of the minority designation when it suits them.

Also, it turns out that desegregation opened the door for white people to gentrify and take over Black spaces.

Let’s start with West Virginia’s Bluefield State University, a college that held on to its HBCU title and the federal funding that comes with it, despite being around 71% white, which, to be fair, is an improvement from around a decade ago, when it was 90% white.

RELATED CONTENT: Bartenders Are Dragging Gen Z For Their Wild Bar Behavior

From Triumph To Tears—Black Teen Disqualified For Celebrating Track Victory

Here’s how NPR explained the college’s racial transition in 2013:

It opened in the late 19th century as the Bluefield Colored Institute, created to educate the children of black coal miners in segregated West Virginia. Although it still receives the federal funding that comes with its designation as a historically black institution, today Bluefield State College is 90 percent white. The road that separates those realities is as rocky as any story of racial transition in post-World War II America.

This part of West Virginia was coal country and still is — trains still haul coal along those tracks hugging the college’s southern edge. Many of the black folks who migrated to West Virginia to work in the coal mines sent their children to the Bluefield Colored Institute. By the 1920s, the school was a football power among black colleges and a stepping stone for much of the region’s black middle class.

In 1954, just a few years after Bluefield State earned full accreditation, the Supreme Court declared segregation illegal in Brown v. Board of Education, reshaping the landscape of America’s schooling. Suddenly, black students had more educational options to choose from, in theory anyway. And black colleges and universities like Bluefield State began having to compete with better-funded predominantly white schools for top black students.

At the same time, new technology was making mining jobs obsolete, and many black folks started leaving the state, heading North to go work in the factories. White veterans started coming back to West Virginia after fighting in Korea. And with the government footing their tuition costs through the G.I. Bill, the state’s inexpensive black schools — the other was West Virginia State University — started looking more and more attractive to white students.

“We had an out-migration of students of color because of Brown v. Board of Ed,” said Jim Nelson, a spokesman for the school, “at roughly the same time that we had an in-migration of largely Caucasian students wanting to use their G.I. Bill benefits. So that’s what, as much as anything, that’s what flipped the complexion of the school.”

But that’s not all that changed the racial tides at Bluefield; a change in leadership also served to make this HBCU a predominantly white institution (PWI).

Source: ablokhin

By the mid-1960s, Bluefield State was about half Black. In 1966, the state selected Wendell G. Hardway to serve as the college’s first white president. By 1968, Hardway had hired 23 new faculty members — all of whom were white. So, the faculty at Bluefield, which had been all-Black as recently as 1954, was, by 1967, only 30% Black. If that’s not a picture-perfect example of why Black people need to gatekeep Black spaces, I don’t know what is.

The situation is similar at West Virginia State University, which, according to its website, was “founded in 1891 as a Historically Black College” but has now “evolved to serve a population that is richly diverse in ethnicity, geography, residential/commuter, high school graduates and adult learners.”

Riiiight, so—let’s talk about that rich ethnic diversity right quick.

Currently, the student body at WVSU, which also continues to maintain its HBCU status, is 67.6% White and only 7.37% Black or African American. And the so-called diversity doesn’t lie in the other ethnic groups either, with mixed race students at 3.27%, Hispanic or Latino students at 2.17%, Asian students at 1.27%, American Indian or Alaska Native students at 0.174%, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders at 0.0868%.

Imagine a school calling itself an HBCU while only its white students even reach double-digit percentage points.

It’s not as if these schools are leading the HBCUs that are actually predominantly Black on an academic level. In fact, of the 107 designated HBCUs in the U.S., Bluefield State and West Virginia State are ranked at No. 38 and No. 42, respectively.

It’s worth mentioning that these aren’t the only HBCUs with growing white student bodies. For example, Lincoln University, an HBCU in Jefferson City, Missouri, is still predominantly Black at around 42%, but 40% of the students there are white.

Again, white conservatives have claimed for generations that the existence of Black colleges is inherently racist (also see Black History Month, BET, etc.), ignoring the fact that white people can and do attend Black colleges, and even receive minority scholarships to do so.

But what happens when we open the gates to our spaces and it results in us getting phased out? It’s almost as if what’s ours is theirs and what’s theirs is still theirs, or else it’s DEI.

Ironic, right?

RELATED CONTENT: Class Is in Session! Black Folks, It’s Time to Follow HillmanTok University

window.addEventListener( 'load', function() { setTimeout( function() { !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '187138648481959'); fbq('track', "PageView"); }, 2800 ); } );



Source link
#White #HBCUs #Yep #Theyre #Real #West #Virginia

powered by Auto Youtube Summarize

The post Mostly White HBCUs? Yep, They’re Real — And In West Virginia first appeared on Blaqly.

]]>
https://blaqly.com/sub/mostly-white-hbcus-yep-theyre-real-and-in-west-virginia/feed/ 0 299
Georgia HBCUs Rally To Support Students Left Homeless By Job Corps Shutdown – Blavity https://blaqly.com/sub/georgia-hbcus-rally-to-support-students-left-homeless-by-job-corps-shutdown-blavity/ https://blaqly.com/sub/georgia-hbcus-rally-to-support-students-left-homeless-by-job-corps-shutdown-blavity/#respond Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:54:52 +0000 https://blaqly.com/sub/georgia-hbcus-rally-to-support-students-left-homeless-by-job-corps-shutdown-blavity/ After students were forced out of their homes and communities due to the U.S. Department of Labor‘s interruption of operations, two HBCUs in Georgia are ...

The post Georgia HBCUs Rally To Support Students Left Homeless By Job Corps Shutdown – Blavity first appeared on Blaqly.

]]>

After students were forced out of their homes and communities due to the U.S. Department of Labor‘s interruption of operations, two HBCUs in Georgia are coming together to assist those heavily impacted.

As Blavity reported, many Job Corps enrollees depend on their centers for more than just hands-on training in fields like welding, nursing and carpentry. They count on on-campus housing, meals and medical care. When these sites were forced to shut their doors overnight, over 29,000 students were left with an uncertain future, according to Axios.

Shorter College shows up with tuition, housing and heart

According to Black Enterprise, Shorter College, an HBCU located in Rome, Georgia, quickly mobilized to offer displaced Job Corps students an opportunity to enroll in summer courses. The college leveraged state and federal scholarship funds to provide free tuition to students in need, but securing housing and meals required an even broader, community-driven response.

“And so therefore, these individuals would have a place to lay their heads,” Shorter College President Jeffery Norfleet told NPR via Black Enterprise. 

He added, “They would receive at least three meals a day, possibly snacks and more. The staff, the faculty, and the administration are willing to make this a success because we do believe in the future for these individuals.”

Morris Brown College extends a lifeline to Job Corps students in crisis

Additionally, Morris Brown College, another celebrated HBCU in Georgia, is also actively encouraging displaced students to apply. Kevin James, Morris Brown’s President and a proud Job Corps alumnus, expressed deep concerns over the implications these closures have for Black and brown students.

“Some of the changes that have been made have affected negatively Black and brown students directly,” James said, per Black Enterprise. “Job Corps is just one example that many students of color will negatively be impacted.”

Despite the challenges ahead, James and fellow HBCU leaders remain determined to protect students from becoming casualties of federal budget decisions.

“So we’re not just going to throw you in the deep end of the pool,” James said. “We’re going to make sure that you have all the resources that you need to be successful.”

Although Georgia’s proactive response provides hope for some, thousands of other Job Corps students and faculty across the country still face an unpredictable fate without alternative options.



Source link
#Georgia #HBCUs #Rally #Support #Students #Left #Homeless #Job #Corps #Shutdown #Blavity

powered by Auto Youtube Summarize

The post Georgia HBCUs Rally To Support Students Left Homeless By Job Corps Shutdown – Blavity first appeared on Blaqly.

]]>
https://blaqly.com/sub/georgia-hbcus-rally-to-support-students-left-homeless-by-job-corps-shutdown-blavity/feed/ 0 271