The Impact Of Segreation at HBCUs

Segregation and resource hoarding

Racial segregation and resource hoarding have had a huge impact on historically black colleges. Including our institution, Prairie View A&M University. Marginalizing our contributions, limiting access that keeps our platform while promoting our legacies, and underfunding our development. These forces have not only stopped our growth, but also our academic growth. These issues have also led to our campus being belittled and our institutional narratives being rich. Over time, HBCUs were chronically underfunded. By this cause it began to limit the ability to create archives, scholarly centers, or even museums that would help preserve our campus culture. If these items were being properly preserved, our culture could have been more promoted, and also all the academic contributions that have taken place.

Loss of Instution Memory

Due to the lack of funding for HBCUs, many of these institutions struggled to keep up with proper archives. Such as photographs, documents, and oral history projects, which have all made up the campus, were lost or not properly preserved because there was no safe place to store these memories. Which means the stories of student activism, black traditions, and faculty innovation were not properly documented or even celebrated due to the lack of funding historically black colleges receive.

Achieving Racial Desegregation

In order to properly desegregate the narrative and give Prairie View A&M University its proper representation, they must focus on the black knowledge that surrounds PVAMU. The first step that can be done is to establish the campus history in the curriculum. That way, students will become engaged with the campus they walk on every day, and also know the background and importance of even being on this campus. Next, establish a public history initiative, while lastly incorporating art and cultural commemoration. All of these strategies will allow PVAMU to be acknowledged for the excellence that lives here while still honoring what came before us, even though we were not physically able to see it .