HBCUs need more equitable funding; Black college-bound AHS students agree

Spelman, Howard, Hampton, Morehouse, Claflin. These are all very known historically black colleges or universities (HBCUs). As a black student in America personally, HBCUs are very special to me. And a lot of students like me value HBCUs as well. Moreover, a lot of students go there. Although these colleges get a lot of money coming in from students, they are severely underfunded. HBCUs are well established and run well, but when it comes to funding from the state, the HBCUs are often looked over. This must change. Considering the large college-bound African American population at Airport, this issue should be of top concern.

HBCUs go all the way back to segregation, and even further back than that, when schools when the United States really practiced the “separate but equal” law established by the Plessy vs. Ferguson court case. Of course, things then really were separate but not equal. People would do the best they could for the whites and then do the bare minimum for the black people. Then they had black and white schools and they funded the white schools and did the bare minimum for black schools. Then in 1954 when Brown vs. The Board of education happened , they integrated schools. They continued to fund how they were funding before.Now fast forward years later to 2021, they are still under funded and nobody says anything about it, because it only affects the people who go to HBCUs.

A black student at Airport, Dresiyn B., a person who often studies black history, says, “ Historically black colleges were and will continue to be looked over unless we make them [the state] hear us and fund our schools the same way they fund the predominantly white schools."

I could not agree more.