Vice President Kamala Harris is an alumna of Howard University, a historically Black College and University located in the nation’s capital. The primary objective of the nation’s HBCUs is to educate Black Americans. Historically, HBCUs have had to do more with less financial resources. To some extent, HBCUs remain underfunded compared to Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), but that’s changing. President Biden has made historic financial investments above $11 billion dollars into HBCUs, and $4 billion to HBCU enrolled students, more than any other administration ever committed. Harris has said, “I know firsthand that our Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are centers of academic excellence.” HBCUs, despite being less than 3% of American universities, are engines of social mobility in the African American community. Dr. Christine M. Slaughter
Most HBCUs are located in the South, which isn’t a coincidence. After Emancipation, Black students were prohibited from attending many public and private colleges. Before education was integrated in the 1950s and 1960s, HBCUs educated most Black college students. HBCUs played a vital role in developing Black social and political consciousness among students. Because of the origins of HBCUs, most students develop stronger connections with their peers and, ultimately, a stronger racial group consciousness, which shapes African American voting behavior and political preferences. But overall, attendance at HBCUs has declined since the 1960s. In 2022, only 9% of Black college students attended an HBCU. Since most HBCUs are located in Southern states that previously sought to suppress student voting, HBCU-enrolled students began and remained at the forefront of voting rights advocacy.
Barriers to reducing the voting power of students are often successful since students are navigating several challenges that older voters face, but HBCU students have resisted. First, college students have to register and re-register to vote. Once they do register, they can either vote absentee in their home state or permanent home address. Many won’t register at their new campus address, or their campus address changes yearly, requiring frequent updates. In addition, not all states allow online voter registration. Students – already spending most of their time online – have to utilize stamps or navigate to their local county clerk or Department of Motor Vehicles to register. Finding where to register is the first barrier to participation.
Out-of-state college students are navigating legislative hurdles to voting between the location of their high school and college. Traditional (ages 18-22) college students are also first-time voters. However, not all college students have withdrawn from voting. Some absentee laws restrict who can return a ballot on a student’s behalf. Lastly, not all college campuses have on-campus polling locations rendering getting to the polling location challenging to navigate. At the polling location, students may be required to show identification, and their student identification card doesn’t count in all states. This congests local polling locations and, along with polling place closures, exacerbates the wait times associated with voting in competitive elections.
Historically Black College or university-enrolled students face compounded disadvantages relative to college students overall. First, HBCUs lack institutional funding for civic engagement work, and many lack administrative support for campus work. To offset this, Alabama A&M University, located in Huntsville, utilized a federal work-study stipend to help register students to vote. Second, HBCUs are located in states that have implemented restrictive voting changes since the 2020 election. In 2024, the Alabama legislature passed legislation to limit and criminalize volunteers from registering voters and offering assistance with absentee ballots, which Governor Kay Ivey signed into law. Alabama is home to 13 HBCUs. Third, many HBCUs aren’t located in majority Black jurisdictions. Huntsville, Alabama, is majority white. In places like this, the voting preferences of HBCU-enrolled students can be different than residents of the city or county.
North Carolina has 10 HBCUs. In 2016, North Carolina A&T and State University students protested against the vote dilution of the campus in a racial and partisan gerrymander. It was proposed that the campus be split into two congressional districts – a common voter suppression tactic. Due to student advocacy, this proposal was reversed. However, NC A&T – the largest HBCU in the state (and in America), lacks an on-campus polling location despite over 71% of the campus voting in the 2020 election. North Carolina has had photo identification laws since 2018, but this is the first presidential election with the new requirements. The NC A& T student identification card is an approved form of identification. But still, these students continue to mobilize to improve voting access for their peers.
Texas has nine HBCUs. In 2018, Jayla Allen, a third-generation Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) student, was the lead plaintiff in Allen v. Waller County, a Section 2 case. In 2019, the Texas legislature passed a law prohibiting temporary polling places. Black students at PVAMU are politically different than the majority white Waller County. A judge ruled that race placed no part in the decision to lessen the early voting period. Again, in the 2020 Presidental primaries students at Texas Southern University, located in Houston, protested voter restrictions, such as the consolidation of polling places, which led to up to six-hour long wait times.
But yet, HBCU students want different for this election. VOTE HBCU/ Xceleader seeks to empower HBCU students with national programming and resources to amplify their voices and has toured several campuses. The Harris/Walz campaign recently announced an HBCU homecoming tour. This election cycle, campaign surrogates are on campuses for Get-out-the-vote efforts. Harris once walked the yards of Howard University as a student, and now her election night operations may be held on Howard’s campus. In 2018, Spelman College alumna and two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams founded Fair Fair Action to address voter suppression in Georgia, a state with 10 HBCUs. However, there has been a missed opportunity to highlight the importance of HBCUs in the American political landscape. The nation almost had the first presidential debate at Virginia State University, an HBCU in Petersburg, Virginia.
Before I became a political science professor, I participated in marches and protest demonstrations as a student at my HBCU, Spelman College. It was there that I navigated the decision to vote absentee instead of my campus address. It was at my HBCU that I learned about student activists like the Atlanta Student Movement. If elected, Harris would be the first president educated at an HBCU, bringing more attention to these institutions and the student advocates, resulting in better democracy for us all.
