Even in the face of such callous misuse of the black experience, I am drawn back to the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who said in his “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” that tension is necessary for growth.
When it was clear that virtually nothing about Trump’s presidency was going to change as a result of his impeachment, we went back to working our jobs and paying our bills. We went back to living while black.
Could we reduce homicides by 10 percent if a black doctor talked to a young man who wants to be one? Could we reduce them by 20 percent if we helped a young brother get a job?
Temple was born as a place where working-class students could earn a college degree through night classes and hard work. But that origin story is about choice. The story of HBCUs is about necessity.
