Stereotyping HBCU's

[AKA_Monet]

Coming from an HBCU-attendee family, where my grandfather graduated from Knoxville and became the president of Bethune-Cookman, my parents graduated Fisk, my father graduated Meharry, several cousins graduated FAMU, my in laws graduated from Morehouse and Morris Brown; and I graduated from Spelman, that maybe I actually do know a thing or 2 about collegiate and university funding and education.

It takes a lot to educate people. There are several societal reasons for that, such as slaves not being allowed to read, why? The key to Spelman's education was to teach former children of slaves how to read the Bible and write their families in the North. It is my understanding that Spelman had a "paper bag" test as to who had lighter-skinned features than other darker-skinned individuals. In fact there are reasons why Spelman is named Spelman rather than Rockafeller, since he funded the school.

So, when we think what it takes to fund HBCU's outside of the UNCF, then it has been extremely tough. Yet, we still educated some the most prolific people in history:

Dr. Martin Luther King and the entire King Family
Thurgood Marshall
Mae Jemison - spent some time at an HBCU, 1st Black Female Astronaut
7 affliates of the D9 whose founders attended these schools

So when one belittles and stereotypes an HBCU and does not attempt improvement backed up with money has very little respect in my eyes.

And yes, my husband and I donate large sums to our respective HBCU's...