Raphael Warnock is the latest HBCU grad to make history in US politics

The Rev. Raphael Warnock is the latest HBCU grad breaking barriers and standing up to shape the nation.

Students and alumni from historically Black colleges and universities around the country are celebrating Warnock winning his US Senate race in Georgia, hoping it will change the misconceptions around the institutions’ quality of education and graduates’ social mobility.

Warnock, a Morehouse College alum, has regularly credited his education as he was the first in his family to graduate college.

“I went to Morehouse College on a ‘full faith’ scholarship. I didn’t know how I would pay for it but I graduated college, earned a Ph.D. degree,” he said in a campaign ad.

Years after attending the Rev. Martin Luther King’s alma mater, Warnock would be selected to become the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist — King’s church in Atlanta.

Warnock is just one of many notable politicians and activists who became trailblazers, years after attending HBCUs.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is a Howard University alumna and Cori Bush, who became the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress in November, is a Harris-Stowe State University alumna.

“When you attend an HBCU, there’s nothing you can’t do,” Harris tweeted last year.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams attended Spelman College in Atlanta and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Atlanta mayor and a surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign, went to Florida A&M University.

“This is an exciting time, this is monumental,” said Patrick Delisser, a 32-year-old urgent care doctor in Atlanta and a Morehouse College graduate. “HBCUs put us in positions that people aren’t aware of. And Warnock shows people what we can achieve.”

There’s more than 100 HBCUs across the country, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Most of them were formed after the Civil War to provide educational opportunities for newly freed slaves.

While they represent about 3% of the higher education institutions, at least 17% of bachelor’s degrees by African Americans are earned at HBCUs, according to the United Negro College Fund, a Washington-based national group that awards college scholarships and supports HBCUs.

It should not be a surprise that HBCUs students and alumni, such as Harris and Abrams, are at the forefront of politics and social justice, said Robert Stephens, founder of the HBCU collective, an advocacy group aiming to increase support of Black higher education institutions.

HBCUs have educated generations of African American leaders and professionals, including King and Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights lawyer who became the first African-American to hold a seat on the Supreme Court. Many students at Spelman and Morehouse were also involved in the civil rights movement.

“The spirit of we’re going to be great, we’re going to succeed, we’re going to be successful flows through HBCUs as well as this sense of belonging to a greater purpose,” Stephens said last year.

But the impact of HBCUs goes beyond politics. For Marilyn Griffin, a high school teacher in Detroit, Michigan, attending an HBCU helped shape the person and educator she is now.

“I found a really big part of myself there, including self awareness and confidence that I didn’t get growing up,” said Griffin, 39, a graduate of Florida A&M University.

Griffin says her interest in African American history grew while attending college and, ultimately, she decided to pursue a career in education. Now, she constantly encourages all of her students to learn about their heritage and culture.

“Every kid deserves to know where they come from no matter where they come from,” she said.

HBCUs have produced notable alumni over the years while struggling for funding and facing stigma about not being able to prepare students “for the real world.”

Stephens, a Winston-Salem State University alumnus, said he disagrees with people who believe HBCUs don’t have a rigorous education.

“When I think about my experience at an HBCU, it was one where I was nourished,” Stephens said. “I was free to be a Black man in America and that has been probably one of the most uplifting things I’ve ever experienced.”

HBCUs award about 20% of African American STEM bachelor’s degrees, according to the United Negro College Fund. They have also fueled social and economic mobility for Black Americans.

A report released in 2018 by the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions indicates that economic mobility is better for HBCU students than for students who attend other schools.

HBCUs enroll far more low-income students and nearly 70% of their students attain at least middle class incomes, the report states.

School administrators could be tapping Harris to help cultivate close ties to the Biden administration as HBCUs across the US have less financial security than predominantly White institutions.

Within both public and private sectors, HBCU endowments lag behind PWIs by at least 70%, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education.

Earlier this year, an outpouring of financial pledges and philanthropic gifts made their way to HBCUs following the George Floyd protests amid renewed calls for racial justice but many HBCUs continue facing financial pressure.

During their campaign, President-elect Joe Biden and Harris pledged to “rectify the funding disparities” faced by HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions by investing over $70 billion.

As Biden and Harris prepare to take office, Robinson, the Winston-Salem State University chancellor offered some advise.

“Continue to think about us. Continue to have conversations with us and continue to listen to what our needs are, as we move forward,” Robinson told WXII.