Baton Rouge is one of my favorite places to find myself waking up. Going back to Louisiana to see my mom’s family usually only takes places every couple of years but provides a different pace of life when we go. This trip found us in town for my cousins’ graduation from high school. For this trip, my mom, my brother, and I were all able to be in town, which is a rare occurrence since my brother and I have gotten older and established our own lives.
Before going any further into this trip, I will give the disclaimer that I received my degrees from PWI not HBCUs, which were primarily functions of affordability in regards to funding and institutional scholarship packages that I received. This is a purely perspective and appreciation story based on my own lived experiences, and I respect that experiences and opinions that others have about college choice. This is my narrative.
While we were all together, my mom decided to take us onto the campus of Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College, a HBCU (Historically Black College & University). This campus holds a special place in my family history. It is the place where my grandparents met. My grandfather would go on to run the dining services department and open a restaurant called Busy Bee on the campus where my mom and her siblings would work. It was also the place that would educate all of my aunts and uncle. I even found myself attending STEM summer camps there during the summers after my 8th and 9th grade years of school. Other family members still serve the institution to this day.
Driving over the bridge onto the campus, the day was bright with beautiful clouds in the sky as we turned onto campus and approached the sign for Southern University. We drove through the campus looking at the buildings that were new and had been renamed since her time being there. Finally, we found a place to park in a lot facing the Mississippi River along which the campus is located. I love being near water (even though I can’t swim lol), and the view was beautiful. Being on the campus had an air of history about it. When we got out, we spent some time sitting and enjoying the view along the river and reading the historical markers about the campus. Reading one of the markers, it discussed the school being established in 1880 as part of a “constitutional mandate to educate ‘persons of color’” given in 1879. It was also one of the first places to receive government funding to education black people in agricultural and mechanical courses. The first documentation of Black people in the U.S. is in the year 1619, and Harvard was founded in 1636. Reading these timelines and reflecting as I walked through the campus really put into perspective the disparity in educational opportunities for people like me before the creation of institutions like this.
We continued to walk around listening to my mom talk about the campus; observing the buildings, the people, the Greek plots along the quad; and admiring the images of the students throughout our walk. As we left, we stopped to get sno balls across the street from the entrance to campus at a stand owned by the son of the former band director for the campus and also a family friend of my mom’s. In a way, visiting the campus felt like returning to an ancestral home.
I have often shared this feeling with other HBCUs that I have visited. It is something to go to a place that has pictures of people that look like you and know that it was created to support your community when other places did not. Even as I was walking around the campus, I began to reflect on how much HBCUs had impacted my own upbringing and career trajectory. In middle school, I spent time at Morehouse doing camps and taking chess lessons along with the summer camps I did at Southern. When I was not in camp, I would spend time in my aunt’s office at Southern helping her with her work and interviewing her colleagues on their careers. It is funny that even as I write this, I see the connections between these years and my choice to work in the world of higher education. Even in graduate school, as I got my Master’s in Education, I did my summer internship at Bethune-Cookman University because I saw HBCUs as places that always centered on community and uplift. These places also saw the creation of NPHC fraternities and sororities, one of which provided me some of my own community while attending a PWI.
Walking around the campus and reflecting on the legacy of my family, I realized that I was indebted to this place and to HBCUs in general for providing my foundational experiences to let me know that I could go on to pursue the career and dreams that I have so far even to working in a space that intersects technology and higher education. Even though I ultimately chose a school based on affordability and scholarships for me, which ended up not being an HBCU, HBCUs are still a part of my journey. The confidence instilled in my own abilities and mental aptitude at these institutions served as foundational drivers for all that would come along on my own journey. For this, I am thankful.
What places remind you of family and community?
What institutions have shaped your own journey and careers?
What roles have HBCUs played in your own life or that of your family?
