Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism

by Jelani M Favors

2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award
2020 Lillian Smith Book Award
Finalist, 2020 Pauli Murray Book Prize

For generations, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been essential institutions for the African American community. Their nurturing environments not only provided educational advancement but also catalyzed the Black freedom struggle, forever altering the political destiny of the United States. In this book, Jelani M. Favors offers a history of HBCUs from the 1837 founding of Cheyney State University to the present, told through the lens of how they fostered student activism.

Favors chronicles the development and significance of HBCUs through stories from institutions such as Cheyney State University, Tougaloo College, Bennett College, Alabama State University, Jackson State University, Southern University, and North Carolina A&T. He demonstrates how HBCUs became a refuge during the oppression of the Jim Crow era and illustrates the central role their campus communities played during the civil rights and Black Power movements. Throughout this definitive history of how HBCUs became a vital seedbed for politicians, community leaders, reformers, and activists, Favors emphasizes what he calls an unwritten "second curriculum" at HBCUs, one that offered students a grounding in idealism, racial consciousness, and cultural nationalism.

Genres: History, Education

368 pages, Hardcover

Published April 16, 2019

Reviews

[Antona Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm the mother of an HBCU graduate whose alma mater is discussed in the book. I'm the mother of a 2020 senior who has a number of HBCUs on her short list to which she has been accepted and aspires to attend one. I am married to an Interim President of an HBCU graduate. I attended an HBCU. A lot of my family are HBCU graduates. This piqued my interest about this new book by Jelani M. Favors in a time when HBCU underfunding has been discussed in the news; a year after the major fundraising campaign and efforts to renew accreditation at Bennett College; a time when state legislators are being held accountable for the disparate funding of state schools; and a few years after the flagship PWI in my state were met with the protests of Black students who were heavily recruited but then horribly mistreated once there, their protest resulted in the President resigning.

This book is a must-read on the value of these historic institutions at a time of racial angst in the country and the rise of hate crimes on PWIs. The ages from 18-22 are formative and those they don't get back. It is a huge weight to try to study and also navigate the rising tide of hate in the wake of the 2016 election. This volume presents the history of a handful of institutions, the good, the bad, the challenge, and the opportunity.

My daughter wants to attend an HBCU because she just wants to be herself and not have to qualify her existence through the perceived-privilege of those who are minority the world.

[Karina Valdez · Rating 5 out of 5]

An INCREDIBLE read about the history of HBCUs and their role in fostering some of the most iconic Civil Rights leaders since the founding of the very first school (Institute for Colored Youth now known as Cheyney). The Bennett College chapter was particularly enjoyable, as often the role of women in books like this is not always explored.

It was especially powerful to read this over the course of the last ten weeks, during a historic election where Black women who had been educated at HBCUs were credited for saving the nation (Stacey Abrams in particular through her and her teams voter registration efforts in Georgia).

Dr. Favors has received much well deserved recognition for this book and I truly enjoyed reading and learning from his engagement with HBCU archives. The epilogue does an amazing job at bridging history with the current moment, and the continued need for support for HBCUs.