By James Wright, Special to the AFRO, jwright@afro.com

Hundreds of students, administrators and alumni from Black higher education institutions from around the country recently visited the U.S. Capitol to lobby lawmakers on behalf of their institutions to demand more financial support.

The HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Collective held its “Second Day of Action” April 17, with close to 300 people contacting their U.S. legislators.

Robert T. Stephens, the founder of the collective, told the AFRO that HBCUs are more important than ever.

Amos Jackson III is the president-elect of the Howard University Student Association. (Courtesy Photo-Amos Jackson III)

“This day of action is taking place because we want the members of Congress to support Black colleges and universities,” Stephens, a 2008 graduate of Winston-Salem State University in Winston-Salem, N.C., said. “We want the Congress to support legislation that calls for increased funding for these institutions. While we are happy that there is increased funding in the 2018 budget for Black colleges, there is still more that is needed.”

Activities during the day included a Capitol Hill rally, a legislative boot camp to learn how to effectively lobby lawmakers and visits to the offices of representatives and senators.

Presently, there are 101 HBCUs in the U.S. and almost all of them were established after the Civil War and before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many non-HBCU colleges and universities barred African Americans from attending their schools until the 1960s.

HBCUs range in size and mission from large North Carolina A&T University, Howard University and Southern University to smaller schools such as Huston-Tillotson University and Miles College.

However, many Black institutions don’t receive the kind of aid from their state legislatures and the U.S. Congress that non-HBCU schools get in terms of research and capital funding. That is why U.S. Reps. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) and Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) the co-chairs of the HBCU Bipartisan Caucus, has introduced the “HBCU Capital Financing Improvement Act.”

The bill would provide low-cost private loans to HBCUs to finance infrastructure repairs, maintenance and construction.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has introduced companion legislation to Adams’s bill in his chamber

Dr. Maria Thompson is the president of Coppin State University in Baltimore. Thompson told rally participants that Black colleges “continue to fill the void in our nation’s educational landscape.”

“Most campuses teach from the European perspective but we teach from the African-American experience,” she said. “Even though there are 4,000 colleges and universities and there are only 100 HBCUs, HBCUs produce 20 percent of African Americans who get bachelor’s degrees, 24 percent of African Americans who get degrees in the STEM field and more than 50 percent of the African-American teachers. That is a high level of productivity and Congress should increase its investment in HBCUs.”

Among the 30 students who attended the rally was Amos Jackson III, the president-elect of the Howard University Student Association. Jackson told the AFRO that students at HBCUs need to let their public officials know of their institutions’ needs.

“It is important that members of Congress, as well as elected officials at the state and local level, understand the challenges that Black colleges face and the students can relate those experiences the best,” Jackson, who takes office in May, said. “HBCUs are more important than ever because America is not as integrated as people believe and it is the Black college that gives African-American students access to education.”