In December 2023, Pamela “Safisha Nzinga” Hill published an op-ed entitled “Should the U.S. Provide Reparations? Start with HBCUs.” Nzinga makes a compelling argument suggesting that reparations may be a beginning remedy to correct intentional and legally sanctioned policies and practices that diverted funds (i.e., taxpayer dollars) that should have been allocated to HBCUs.
Actions which have spanned decades are documented in Adam Harris’ 2021 book, "The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal — and How To Set Them Right"; John Silvanus Wilson’s recent book, "Hope & Healing: Black Colleges and the Future of American Democracy" (2023); and most recently, in letters from the United States Secretaries of Education and Agriculture to 16 state governors identifying 12.6 billion dollars that should have been allocated to Black land grant universities, from just 1987 to 2020, but were not. Land grant HBCUs were established as a result of the Second Morrill Act of 1890, and most have been in existence for nearly 125 years. So, the evidence of funds denied for 33 years is a small percentage of the funds yet due.
A state’s control, interpretation, and execution of federal policies intended to address inequity is vulnerable to political worldviews and agendas. These state actions not only impact the individual institutions but the communities they serve: the students who attend, the communities in which they are located, and the professions where their graduates are employed. While this is not a new realization, the availability of empirical data that illuminates discriminatory policy execution and its generational impact must be central to HBCUs demand for redress. Researchers use this data to scientifically determine and quantify how these decisions have affected HBCUs and those touched by them. How many more students could have attended, how many more faculty could have been employed, how many more lives could have been impacted by HBCU graduate teachers, physicians, engineers, and lawyers, if the federally allocated funds were disbursed?
HBCUs have sought redress for these inequities through the Court. Several states including Mississippi and Maryland have settled lawsuits in favor of HBCUs awarding funds to compensate for past discriminatory practices. While these settlements have garnered national attention, the discriminatory practices harmful to HBCUs are not restricted to individual states. The federal government must also scrutinize its policies and practices that have historically disadvantaged HBCUs from accessing funds that would extend their reach and impact.
While most associate reparations with the United States’ enslavement of Black people, the movement also encompasses post-slavery federally sanctioned and protected practices, such as segregation, disenfranchisement, and the criminalization of Black bodies for profit, that have challenged the humanity of Black people writ large. I argue that the refusal to fairly disseminate taxpayer funds allocated to HBCUs is another example of an intentional discriminatory practice that continues to have a deleterious effect on these institutions so critical to the nation.
We must speak boldly about reparations and the nation’s responsibility to accept responsibility and be accountable for past and current practices that limit individuals’, and institutions’ possibilities. Research that explores these questions should be encouraged in the academy and embraced as a pathway to a more democratic and just society.
The reparations dialogue should not be viewed as an exclusive conversation but an expansive one. The language put forth by reparations advocates, including the National African-American Reparations Commission and the Reparations Narrative Lab, provides terms that facilitate awareness, discourse, and action that is generative and provides a safe space to engage and build our community’s capacity to advance this movement. The Reparations Narrative Lab’s support of “organizers, researchers, and artists to build narrative power and increase public support for reparations” explicitly and unapologetically centers our experiences by deconstructing dominant frameworks that render us storyless.
Narratives matter. Narratives speak our humanity to the world. HBCUs and their progeny permeate every aspect of this nation and are therefore central to the reparations dialogue and uniquely positioned to advocate for reparations as a mechanism for systemic change. Capturing and conveying HBCU narratives that affirm our humanity through research is not just a strategy but an essential acknowledgment to ourselves and the world.
Article ID: 2236