No collaboration has proven more powerful, more consistent and more influential for black prosperity in the United States than the marriage of religion and higher education within black communities. The bond between black churches and historically black colleges and universities has broadly painted the rich history of the Black American experience; with every protest, entrepreneurial success, entertainment breakthrough and political victory authored by influential worshipers and students from each.
This partnership continues to yield rewards for the black community in research, academic development and social programming, with churches financing and marketing significant programs and grassroots initiatives in HBCU communities. The legacy of students and congregants forming the political strongholds of black activism in communities across the nation are as viable today as they were at their apex of the 1950s and 60s.
But a troubling pattern is emerging for several church-affiliated HBCUs. Campuses that once thrived in the Civil Rights era as bustling hubs of training and mobilization are now challenged to find new academic and social identities in dubiously golden age of "post-racism" and diversity chasing. With the rise of pop cultural and media influence of predominantly white colleges combined with extraordinary levels of recruitment of black students, many HBCUs now find that the once-reliable traveling companion of the black church is falling further and further behind on the path to the promised land.
If they remain on the journey at all.
Fisk University, the first HBCU to receive SACS accreditation and one of the nation's revered historic landmarks, faces growing financial jeopardy and resulting criticism from alumni and Nashville community members. Problems with leadership and direction for the university have become fodder for national headlines.
Wilberforce University, the nation's first HBCU founded and operated by African Americans, finds itself in a firestorm of audit concerns, internal protest and community questions. Controversy swirls around its current president Patricia Hardaway and her predecessor Floyd Flake, both of whom stand accused of poor fiscal management and resulting casualties in academic offerings, faculty and student services.
The historic value of Fisk and Wilberforce, seemingly, would be enough for Black America to stand up for its continuance. Survival and accountability should easily be the topic of discussion across black media, political minds with ties and loyalty to the institutions, and among active student leadership. But each of these factions have fallen short, and the religious institutions so critical to their founding, the United Church of Christ (Fisk) and the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Wilberforce), have lapsed in their public and private commitments to these schools.
It's one thing to allow the institutions to thrive or die on the terms of their autonomy, but church and the state of Black America have always been inextricably and wonderfully linked. To see two institutions publicly floundering for support, flirting with the indignity of closure and bringing the entirety of HBCU culture to the brink of humiliation as a result, it is reasonable to expect that these church bodies would at the very least, show mercy by influencing the arena of public opinion.
It is reasonable to expect the United Church of Christ and the African Methodist Episcopal bodies to advocate for Fisk and Wilberforce continuing their service to God and country through higher education. It is reasonable for the churches to appeal to bishops and congregations to make the financial solvency of these institutions a top philanthropic priority.
More importantly, where media and alumni have thrown their hands up in disgust with the alleged failings of leadership, it is the churches that can intervene with the offer of consultants, grants, and research opportunities to temporarily satisfy prayers for a miracle.
Fisk and Wilberforce are the extreme examples of what happens when the strong hand of the black church loosens its grip on the black college, but there are many examples of churches straying away from their educational missions once exclusively served by way of the HBCU. Many HBCUs could be helped by Church contributions to marketing and brand awareness assistance, professional development and technological enhancements without creating lapses in its other faith-based goals.
Some ministers and congregations have taken this partnership seriously, and commit regularly to building the relationship on the local level.
But it is the nationally recognizable relationship between the black church and the black college that made both institutions what they are today -- the collective breeding ground for black prosperity and enlightenment. Fisk and Wilberforce are not the first, and they aren't the worst, but the nation will be poorly served if the Church-HBCU culture does not act fast to make them the last examples of prodigal institutions doomed to suffer a lonely and unholy demise.