The Howard Protests: Unity Among the People

Twitter ran amok with photos and narratives from members of the student body at Howard University as they told the world about the less than acceptable living conditions at their university. Keep in mind, this is the same university who’s tuition can range from anywhere to thirty to forty thousand for an average student and sits at the top of the HBCU landscape as far as name recognition and prestige. Yet somehow, such a prestigious institution can’t properly house its charges? Not only is it negligence on part of Howard, but it’s disrespectful to the legacy left behind by anyone who’s ever fought for us to have black spaces in academia.
We often speak about unity in the black community and in black spaces across the nation in a romanticized context, looking at our past and what those who came before us did in an almost legendary light. From King, to X, to Chairman Fred Hampton, we’ve been presented with the legacy of heroes who believed in their causes so much that they’d be willing to die for them. And we loved them for it.
We loved the idea that people who look like us could experience pain, hardship, hurt, and still rise above it to become something greater than the amalgamation of our shared pain. So I pose the question: have we learned nothing?
In a world where our heroes and legends were meant to inspire the next generation to build worlds where we wouldn’t have to suffer lower treatment in any institution, yet alone our own, why are students at Howard University forced to hold demonstrations in their own student union due to a lack of proper living conditions for large swathes the university student population? Why are they forced to camp out in said union for nights on end while their administration gaslights their student experience? And where is the collective outrage of the people?
It’s these questions and many like them that forces us to take a long look at the world we were born into, and question whether or not we are proactively contributing to its betterment. Whether it be from an academic or administrative standpoint, it seems to me that those who hold power within these systems have bought into the American way of doing things: profit and capitalize from all, even at the expense of their people.
I don’t doubt that there are administrators at Howard University and HBCUs across the country who genuinely have the best interest of the students at heart, but just as we constantly sue for accountability from other people in power, we must demand the same from our own. This applies when they are in charge of our education, and even more so when they receive as much funding and tuition from that very same student body.
The worst part of it is that we all know the stereotypes and stigmas associated with HBCUs; the idea of being less than and the narrative that we aren’t up to par with white academia. And while I’ve never subscribed to the idea that we as a people have to prove anything to anyone outside of our campuses, don’t we at least owe a higher standard or expectation to ourselves?
So as we scroll through our social media apps this week and see more of the pictures and stories of the students who were made to protest their own HBCU under hashtag #BlackBurnTakeover, remember the legacy that we are supposed to be upholding. The great demonstrators of our past such as X, King and Hampton may have fought against white supremacy first and foremost, they also fought for a better future for us, their ideological offspring to live life better than they had to.
Students of Howard University, we see your plight, and until your administration gives you the transparency and results that are expected from an institution of their caliber, we’ll be right there with you all fighting the good fight in any way that we can. This HBCU community that we have is not perfect, but in times such as these when those in power would ignore our voices as students, it’s our prerogative as individuals to stand up and say: No, that’s not how we’re moving. Not anymore.