I wish I went to an HBCU. Auburn guy here but I spent a lot of time down at Tuskegee and I always had a better time down there
Folks can brush HBCU's off as saying "oh well you can be around your own people anytime" but it's not simply that. It's the aura, the culture on campus and the history in the area. I could feel the difference between Auburn and Tuskegee. Hanging down there always felt so...liberating
This. Just like I can feel difference between UMES, Bowie, Morgan, and Howard.
Also, some of the HBCU critics especially on this site need to understand that Black People are the most diverse group of people on the planet, even amongst African Americans there’s a sheer degree of “multiculturalism”. You have Black folk at these schools who come from different metro areas, social backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and subcultures with various interests who bring their unique flavas to their HBCU.
In fact at my school UMES, you got a lot of Black Americans from the DMV, Baltimore, Delaware, Philly, Jersey, NYC, Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore, southern VA, the Carolinas, ATL, Miami/Dade, Louisiana, even as far west as Cali bringing the music, dances, fashion, slang, accents, and general culture of their hometowns to the school. Hell Ion know about the other Mid-Atlantic HBCUs, but UMES was the first time I’ve heard GoGo music and Bmore Club being played together under the same roof at campus functions, parties, and DJ mixes and nobody was talkin shyt or tryna spark some shyt to each other....Us DMV folk were too busy beatin our feet, choppin, and Gleesh walkin while the Bmore folk were too busy 2-steppin and Wu-tangin to cause any drama. We get along with each other for the most part even then talk shyt to each other for friendly jokes.
But yeah that’s just African Americans, you also got African, Jamaican, West Indian, and Latino (most of whom identify as Black, especially the Ricans) students who bring their own flavas, lingos, creativity, and cultural customs to campus as well. HBCUs are an incredibly great way to get a feel for the Global Black Diaspora both home and abroad
Real live, Imma stick with HBCUs come grad school as well though it’ll still be here in my home state since tuition is much lower. Prolly might try to look into Bowie State again, I really liked that school when I toured it. The Pride of Prince George’s County