Thread by @KHen06

I’m a second generation #hbcu graduate (#scsu me and #norfolkstateuniversity my dad). I was raised for this. 👑✊🏾
#blackexcellence #homecoming

Canceled HBCU homecomings deeply rooted in community and culture leave a void theathletic.com/1945691/2020/0…

We go hard, especially during Homecoming, because HBCU’s represent the four years in our lives in which we weren’t the minority, an affinity group, an ERG, or an afterthought. HBCU’s; It’s Black sacred ground.

It’s a family reunion, a block party, a cookout, a kickback, a fashion show, a festival, a black power rally, a revival, an oasis, a physical, and spiritual baptism in Blackness. #ifyouknowyouknow

From The Athletic:
Every college athletics department is grappling with the fallout from the pandemic, with many major NCAA conferences still undecided on their paths forward this fall. But HBCUs, with their more modest resources, are being hit particularly hard.

The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) has suspended fall sports, while the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) has moved fall sports to the spring.
But nothing will hurt for HBCUs and the communities they serve worse — from a financial and emotional standpoint —

The week-long celebrations deeply ingrained in the culture draw tens of thousands of alumni back to their respective campuses each year.
The homecoming bonfires, pageants, parades, gospels, panel discussions, concerts, comedy shows, step shows and fundraisers are all lost, too.

There will be no sign of the fraternity and sorority alumni proudly wearing their letters and helping raise money for their currently enrolled brothers and sisters.

At HBCUs, just by the nature in which they were formed, this is the one place where we’re not in the minority. We can celebrate our Black excellence, if you can call it that, where it’s not often celebrated in the broader community.”

The HBCU homecoming experience has its roots in Black churches, all the way back to the American Revolution. Prince Hall and Bishop Richard Allen, two of the era’s most influential Black leaders, helped create spaces where Black Americans could congregate, organize & socialize.

Homecomings became important annual events in Black churches across the years and remain so, sometimes being celebrated on that church’s anniversary, on Juneteenth or any other day of significance.

Once athletics became big at HBCUs in the 1920s and 1930s, homecomings naturally followed.
“When you look at African-American history, there are two institutions in which Black people primarily had control of — that is, the Black church and the HBCU’s.

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