Beyond Our Skin
Path to Education and Enrichment
Kelly Meyers, '08 and Alandrea Timmons, '08
Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: GSB Life
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Prior to 1837, regardless of your drive and intellectual capacity, if you looked like us, then college was not an option. Melanin level, not intellect, determined who accessed education - the key to the American Dream. No college would have accepted you, not as long as you were black. You had the intellectual capacity but the wrong skin color. Your dreams of success and higher learning were stifled. In 1837 things changed. America's oldest academic institution for higher learning, Cheney University in Pennsylvania was established. For the first time, Black people had the opportunity to access higher education that was customized to optimize our success.
Over time, more than 100 colleges and universities were erected to educate, mold, and encourage the Black youth of America. These educational institutions, called Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), account for a mere 3% of all US higher learning institutions. However, HBCUs have been responsible for graduating 75% of all Blacks who receive college degrees. Among these graduates are the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights activist (Morehouse), Ed Bradley - award winning 60 Minutes correspondent (Cheyney State), Toni Morrison- Nobel Prize winning author (Howard), The Honorable Kwame Kilpatrick - youngest mayor of Detroit (Florida A&M University), Thurgood Marshall- Supreme Court Justice (Lincoln), Reginald Lewis - late CEO of TLC/Beatrice (Virginia State), and Oprah Winfrey - talk show host and philanthropist (Tennessee State).
Six of us within the student body of the Chicago GSB Class of 2008 are graduates of HBCUs. We would like to share the mystique of the HBCU experience. The following quotes are representative of the fondest memories about HBCU life that we wanted to share:
"FAMU offered me many opportunities to grow not only as an individual but also as a young black female. I was privileged to study under phenomenal professors who expanded my mind beyond engineering into history and religion. I was lucky to befriend some truly amazing women who continue to support and inspire me to this day. But that's not the whole FAMU experience.
Over time, more than 100 colleges and universities were erected to educate, mold, and encourage the Black youth of America. These educational institutions, called Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), account for a mere 3% of all US higher learning institutions. However, HBCUs have been responsible for graduating 75% of all Blacks who receive college degrees. Among these graduates are the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights activist (Morehouse), Ed Bradley - award winning 60 Minutes correspondent (Cheyney State), Toni Morrison- Nobel Prize winning author (Howard), The Honorable Kwame Kilpatrick - youngest mayor of Detroit (Florida A&M University), Thurgood Marshall- Supreme Court Justice (Lincoln), Reginald Lewis - late CEO of TLC/Beatrice (Virginia State), and Oprah Winfrey - talk show host and philanthropist (Tennessee State).
Six of us within the student body of the Chicago GSB Class of 2008 are graduates of HBCUs. We would like to share the mystique of the HBCU experience. The following quotes are representative of the fondest memories about HBCU life that we wanted to share:
"FAMU offered me many opportunities to grow not only as an individual but also as a young black female. I was privileged to study under phenomenal professors who expanded my mind beyond engineering into history and religion. I was lucky to befriend some truly amazing women who continue to support and inspire me to this day. But that's not the whole FAMU experience.
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