Category: For Students

What Is Juneteenth?

Also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and, as such, holds special significance for Black Americans.

Slavery’s remants have created long-enduring inequities in income and wealth attainment.

On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and ensure all enslaved people were freed. This historic occasion came two and half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

In the years that followed, former slaves celebrated Juneteenth by delivering inspirational speeches, singing songs of hope and praise, honoring Black culture and food, and gathering with family and friends.

Slavery sought to destroy the cultures and familial structure of enslaved Black people, and its remants have created long-enduring inequities in income and wealth attainment between Black and white Americans. Juneteenth is thus a symbolic day of independence for Black Americans, and a reminder that the fight for freedom and equality is ongoing.

Juneteenth’s Role at Colleges

As colleges confront their racist legacies and recurring incidents of anti-Blackness and racial discrimination on campus, Juneteenth serves as a reminder of the systemic barriers that continue to impede the progress and liberation of Black Americans.

Despite the importance of this holiday, U.S. history classes rarely teach or mention Juneteenth.

Despite the importance of this holiday, U.S. history classes rarely teach or mention Juneteenth. Furthermore, Black college students have often felt that their history has been devalued and ignored in conventional teachings of U.S. history.

Universities and students are key to expanding educational access and broadening the social consciousness of future generations by acknowledging the racial and social injustices of the past and present.

Celebrating Juneteenth means promoting equity, teaching Black history and culture, and supporting Black businesses and social causes. By doing this, colleges and students can help uplift Black students as well as the Black community as a whole.

5 Ways to Celebrate Juneteenth in College

Colleges and students have many options when it comes to honoring the historic significance of this holiday. Here are five Juneteenth celebration ideas to try out at your institution.

1) Support Local Black Businesses

Supporting Black-owned companies creates more opportunities for increasing the generational wealth of Black families.

To support Black entrepreneurs, universities could employ Black-owned restaurants for a campus event or create a list of Black-owned businesses to share with the campus community, while students could order food from Black-owned restaurants and shop with Black retailers.

Black entrepreneurs often face challenges to starting and building lucrative businesses, so increased visibility and support are integral to their longevity. 

2)Donate to Black-Led Social Justice Organizations

In addition to participating in Black Lives Matter protests, you or your institution can donate money — even a small amount — to organizations dedicated to social justice for Black people. These organizations focus on increasing legal aid, expanding healthcare access, building the pipeline of local Black leaders, and growing Black political participation.

Here are 14 Black social justice organizations to support right now.

3) Honor Black Heroes on Social Media

College students regularly engage with others on social media, making it an excellent platform for reaching a larger audience and building awareness. Colleges and universities can create weeklong or monthlong social media campaigns to recognize the importance of Juneteenth. You might consider, for example, highlighting a Black hero or historical figure each day.

Given that Black heroes are often overshadowed, a social media campaign can help ensure that the accomplishments of Black Americans are not forgotten.

As a student, you could use your social media accounts to share posts related to Juneteenth, or start a hashtag to create awareness around notable Black figures.

4) Campaign to Make Juneteenth a National Holiday

Juneteenth is currently recognized by at least 47 states and the District of Columbia as an official state holiday or observance. Texas was the first state to designate Juneteenth as a paid holiday, and Washington state recently did the same.

Honoring Juneteenth as a national holiday recognizes Black people’s humanity and rejoices in the progress we’ve made as a nation.

Colleges could arrange a call-a-thon for students to advocate to their local representatives for making Juneteenth a national holiday. If you’re a student, take it upon yourself to call or write a letter to your representative. You can find contact information for your elected officials at USAGov.

6) Host a Black Art Symposium

Art in all forms has played an indispensable role in the history and culture of Black Americans.

Slaves often expressed their feelings of hope, sorrow, and inspiration through music and dance. From writers of the Harlem Renaissance to contemporary filmmakers, Black artists have chronicled the Black experience and the fight for freedom and equality.

Universities might consider hosting a Black art symposium featuring local Black artists, musicians, and dancers. The event would be a fun and interesting way to celebrate and honor the significance of art in the lives of Black Americans.

Students and student groups could put together their own smaller symposiums highlighting the art of Black peers, faculty, staff, and community members.

Another option is to learn more about Black art by reading biographies of Black artists, going to museums featuring Black art exhibits, listening to Black musical artists, and taking free online courses.

Why Colleges and Students Should Celebrate Juneteenth

Over the past year, educational leaders have boldly announced efforts and initiatives to dismantle racism — and many colleges have made a strong commitment to build and sustain a culture of antiracism. At the same time, college students have come out in droves to demand social change for Black Americans and other marginalized groups.

Both college leaders and students must go beyond issuing simple words denouncing discrimination. They must actively work to eradicate anti-Blackness and uplift the histories and cultures of marginalized students.

Whether you’re attending a college or working at a college, recognizing the importance of Juneteenth marks a crucial step to ensuring our most vulnerable students feel safe, respected, and valued.

Over the last several years, Huston-Tillotson University (HT) in Austin, TX has been steadily improving its environmental profile. Highlights include the introduction of an Environmental Studies major, a 240 kW rooftop solar installation, environmental education and outreach via the Dumpster Project, the activities of sustainability student group Green is the New Black, and attendance at the United Nations COP21 climate conference in Paris. This progress is just part of what we hope is a broad campus transformation. Building a green identity requires clear self-reflection; we continually ask “what does it really mean for a university to be green?” For a historically black institution like HT, a large part of the answer lies in the intersection between the school’s history and the practice of environmental justice.

Environmental Justice is Rooted in Social Justice

The HBCU Climate Consortium Delegation at COP21

Environmental justice (EJ) is increasingly prominent in environmental circles. EJ is based on the understanding that all of us deserve a healthy environment – clean air and water, healthy food, and biodiverse ecosystems free of toxic agents. The goal of EJ, then, is to ensure that environmental benefits and burdens are equitably distributed.

EJ emerged as a community-based movement in the 1980s, bolstered by groundbreaking studies that detailed how environmental burdens in the US disproportionally affect marginalized communities. Economic pressures, inadequate representation, and corporate abuse contribute to a pervasive pattern: poorer people and people of color were found to live near polluting industries, landfills, and areas with poorer air quality. Much EJ work focuses on correcting this pattern by raising awareness, renewing impacted areas, and creating community resilience. Restorative initiatives like Sustainable South Bronx and Little Village Environmental Justice Organization go beyond mitigating environmental abuses to address the system that allowed these situations to perpetuate. Thus, EJ often addresses racism, gender discrimination, worker’s rights, economic inequalities, access to healthcare, inclusive governance, and community development. Environmental justice is built on social justice. And social justice is a road historically black colleges have walked before.

HBCUs Are Uniquely Positioned to Tackle EJ Issues

There are 107 Historically Black College or Universities (HBCUs) in the US. HBCU is a special designation for private and public institutions of higher education founded before 1964 with the mission of educating black Americans. Most HBCUs are located in former slaveholding states, and most were formed before 1900 – many during the Reconstruction period with the assistance of organizations like the Freedmen’s Bureau and the American Missionary Society, or in 1890 when federal funding for black land-grant colleges was enacted. Most HBCUS began as teacher training colleges (normal institutions), seminaries, or agricultural and technical schools. They have evolved. Today, HBCUs range in size from large research-focused universities to community colleges. Despite this heterogeneity, HBCU’s common founding mission – and commitment to address inequalities – ties them together. HBCUs have lent powerful voices to social justice movements from civil rights to women’s rights to worker’s rights. They are suited by history and by vision to bring their impact to environmental rights. HBCUS are particularly well-positioned to tackle the “green ceiling” problem, that is, environmental organization leadership demographics that do not reflect the diversity of our communities.

Huston-Tillotson Joins a Growing HBCU-EJ Network

Huston-Tillotson first took steps towards improving its environmental profile in 2008. Campus recycling was instituted and HT joined what was at the time the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a signature program of Second Nature now known as The Carbon Commitment. Since then, students, staff, and faculty have implemented environmental projects in academics, campus engagement, community outreach, and operations. Some of these projects have broken new ground for our institution. For example, based on AASHE’s database of university solar installations, HT now has the largest rooftop solar installation of any private HBCU.

As HT’s green identity has developed, our institutional focus on environmental justice has sharpened. HT has hosted the Building Green Justice Forum, a day-long environmental justice conference, for the last two years. Environmental efforts on campus were united in a newly formed Center for Sustainability and Environmental Justice. And students in Green is the New Black, whose mission is to promote sustainability through campus engagement and community outreach, have linked HT to the broader HBCU-EJ community through their participation in the HBCU Student Climate Initiate, a project led by environmental justice powerhouses Dr. Beverly Wright and Dr. Robert Bullard.
The commitment of HBCUs to voicing EJ concerns reached the global stage just a few weeks ago, when a delegation of 50 HBCU student leaders and mentors attended the UN COP21 climate conference. HT Green is the New Black students Brittany Foley and Elvia Hernandez and mentors Dominique Bowman and Karen Magid joined representatives from 15 other HBCUS to deliver their call for climate justice.

Environmental Justice on Every Campus

Environmental justice adds a critical perspective to environmentalism that demands the attention of our campus efforts. Attention to EJ can also compel students who may not normally be interested in environmental efforts. We hope that HT and other HBCUs can serve as examples of how to blend social justice and environmentalism.

Adult learners—or students over the age of 25—face unique challenges in post-high school education, and those challenges are often steeper for Black students. Can HBCUs be part of the solution?

In 2007, as Jasmine Haywood was preparing for her final year in the electronic media, arts, and communications program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, she realized she wanted to pursue a different kind of career. Graphic design was not her passion. As a student, she had been heavily involved in extracurricular activities, including working as a tour guide and advocating for Latinx learners, and a career in higher education intrigued her. At the suggestion of an advisor she applied for a job at RPI, and after graduation began working as an admissions counselor.

Haywood was tasked with the job of swaying learners from across the country toward RPI, but time and again she was struck by the unique needs of prospective Black students—many of whom are first generation learners—and the many ways the system was letting them down. Some 30 percent of first-generation learners coming straight out of high school drop out within three years of starting their studies, according to reports. Some of these students are plagued by difficult considerations, like which school can offer them flexible class schedules, access to childcare, and an inclusive, supportive post-high school environment. As a Black Latina familiar with these challenges, Haywood did her best to provide objective advice.

The experience opened Haywood’s eyes to the needs of many Black learners as they wade through the landmine of education after high school, from enrollment to graduation and into the workforce. These challenges only compound for many Black adults who decide to return to school after having not graduated. Recent reports highlight that among Black adult learners between the ages of 25 to 29, only 29 percent held a bachelor’s degree, compared to 45 percent of white learners in the same age bracket.

For these students, and those who are older, college is a complicated space to navigate while maintaining a career, building a family or reenrolling in programs where their prior credits may not be transferable. Haywood came to refer to the challenge of navigating these unique barriers, and similar ones facing Black adult learners, as a kind of “hidden curriculum.”

Haywood’s two years as an admissions counselor solidified her passion for education beyond high school and sharpened her interest in helping historically marginalized students, particularly adult learners. Her 2016 doctorate in higher education and student affairs from the Indiana University School of Education was a history-making event—Haywood was one of only eight Black women to receive their doctorates from the School of Education. This work laid the foundation for her latest role in education equity: strategy director at a foundation which endeavors to make education beyond high school available to learners who are most in need, including students from low income backgrounds, recently landed immigrants, inmates, parolees, and people on probation, along with students juggling employment.

For her part, Haywood is particularly focused on increasing funding for adult students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and believes her own post-high school experience would have benefitted from attending an HBCU. “Both my undergrad and graduate schooling, unfortunately, involved a lot of racial microaggressions and experiences with racism on campus,” she said. By contrast, as spaces of shared identity, experience, and history, HBCUs offer Black students much-needed reprieve from the “hidden curriculum.”

HBCUs are also deeply embedded in the communities they serve, and are thus equipped with the understanding and knowledge it takes to stretch resources to best serve their student bodies. “They don’t have a lot of the challenges that historically white institutions have where they don’t know how to serve Black adults,” Haywood said. “They know what it takes to provide that sense of belonging.”

HBCUs also have a considerable impact when it comes to the success of Black students in the U.S. While just 3 percent of the country’s students attend an HBCU, they educate 10 percent of all Black students and represent over 20 percent of Black graduates. Students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math also get a leg up if they attend an HBCU: while Black graduates comprise only 7 percent of all STEM degrees in the US, for example, nearly 20% of those graduates received their degrees from an HBCU. Black graduates from HBCUs are also more likely to have higher mental and financial well-being than Black graduates who did not attend an HBCU.

In early 2020, Haywood connected with the leadership of ten HBCUs in North Carolina to kickstart the HBCU Adult Learner Initiative, a collaboration designed to support the specific needs of learners beyond the traditional age 18-to-24 demographic. She and a team of experts selected five HBCUs that would receive financial support to restructure their campuses and extend existing programs centered on adult students. The participating schools range in size from North Carolina’s rural Elizabeth City State University, which has an enrollment of about 2,000, to the medium-sized Fayetteville State University (FSU), with just under 6,000.

“I really want the Adult Learner Initiative to be like a proof concept,” Haywood said. “North Carolina has one of the largest numbers of HBCUs in the country. If the initiative succeeds, it can be taken to states such as Texas and Alabama which also have high numbers of HBCUs.” Over a period of two years these universities will a grant in addition to access to a team of technical experts, and each institution will distribute it toward areas where adult learners need the most support. FSU will double down on its pre-existing initiative to make transferring credits easier for adults and ex-military students coming in from community colleges, so they can easily re-enroll to complete their degrees or certifications. FSU also offers counseling and business classes for veterans and military-affiliated students stationed at nearby Fort Bragg, who make up 34 percent of the student body.

For his part, Gary Brown, vice chancellor of student affairs at ECSU, has lofty plans for the Adult Learner Initiative grant. Having spent almost two decades in education, he was hired at ECSU after the institution had weathered several years of instability. He envisions holistic changes that specifically serve adult learners including the construction of a “learning and living community,” a vibrant student village for on-campus housing, technology support, and counseling services, among other resources.

“I don’t want the students to walk away from the school feeling like they paid for the most expensive hotel stay of their life,” Brown said. “I want them to have a community, because it’s community that translates into student retention.”

For Haywood, the struggle to balance motherhood with her education hits particularly close to home: the on-campus childcare facility filled up quickly at the Indianapolis campus of Indiana University, forcing Haywood and her husband to constantly coordinate drop-offs and pick-ups from an off-campus daycare. While she leaned on the fellow Black mothers in her doctoral cohort for emotional support, she desperately lacked the institutional assistance needed to juggle her packed schedule and multiple responsibilities.

Haywood aims to center community with the Adult Learner Initiative, and provide HBCUs and their students the structural support they need to elevate Black learners. “My experience as an admissions counselor is most of the reason I’m in the career I’m in today,” Haywood said. “I saw things that frustrated me. It’s not a matter of whether [students] are smart enough. They are just not getting enough support.” As an exclamation point to her journey in equitable education access so far, Haywood is eager to discover how the initiative might pioneer a model for progressive education across the country.