Letters: Beating the drum for HBCUs

DENNIS RICHARDSON JR.
Contact Dennis Richmond at 
dennisrichondjr@gmail.com

ORANGEBURG, South Carolina -- My name is Dennis Richmond Jr. and I am a 19-year-old African Diaspora Studies major with a minor in mass communications matriculating at Claflin University in Orangeburg. I am a native of Yonkers, New York, and a 2013 graduate of Riverside High School.

As one of my mentors, Professor Patricia Koger of South Carolina, would say: I am “beating the drum” for college education across the Lower Hudson Valley and Harlem. The Journal Newspaper mentioned me as did Jet in its magazine as I am executing an initiative about HBCUs. The initiative is important since many New York residents in Westchester do not know about Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

I received a call from Dr. George Cooper, executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs. I will be working with the White House during this effort. I have also raised the funds to create a short documentary about the HBCU experience and I am beginning a web series to discuss the modern-day college experience with hundreds of students on the campuses of Claflin University and South Carolina State University.

I started down this path because I know that in Westchester County, many students do not know about HBCUs, as the schools are not a part of the Northern experience. The atmosphere in New York tolls the bells for SUNYs, CUNYs and community colleges, where as in the Southern areas of the United States, there are more than 100 HBCUs. Unfortunately, since the 1980s, many HBCUs have been closing their doors and are continuing to do so. Students are not applying to attend HBCUs due to lack of interest and receiving a misguidance that most are party schools.

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