Former NFL football star Deion Sanders announced in November that he was leaving his post as head football coach at Mississippi’s Jackson State University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU). He was recruited to become the new head coach at the University of Colorado. Sanders’ decision sparked a social media and popular media frenzy.
Three years ago, the man who nicknamed himself “Primetime” arrived at Jackson State and turned a largely unknown team into a dynamic, entertaining, and championship-level program. He lived up to his name. Sanders breathed life into something that was dormant. Jackson State has a rich history of producing monumental alumni. One of those graduates is Walter Payton, who is one of the greatest NFL running backs in league history and the man whom the league’s community service award is named after. Yet, the present program lacked luster. It needed support.
Coincidentally, supporting HBCUs has become en vogue. Since the George Floyd murder, combating racism (or being anti-racist) has become a hot topic, and that dialogue put the spotlight on the idea of supporting Black institutions. Philanthropy has been pouring into HBCUs at what seems like unprecedented levels. Still, for us longtime HBCU advocates, it was Sanders’ Jackson State restoration project that felt like the wind that our sails had been waiting for.
So, as Coach Primetime takes his talents to a predominantly white institution (PWI), the Sanders saga raises important questions about what it means to support the Black school in this moment. And, by Black school, I do not just mean the Black college. We should be interested in what it means to support the Black elementary or secondary public school, or what I am calling the Black-serving institution (BSI). However, the parallels between “lower” and higher education for Black Americans makes the entangling of the two necessary.
Contextualizing the Sanders decision
It is important to, first, identify the problem in the Sanders Saga. Many criticized Sanders for leaving so quickly. It raises larger questions. Was he committed to that HBCU — or to the very concept of the HBCU — in the first place? Why don’t our most gifted and talented stay and build up Black institutions and programs? The practical dilemma Sanders faced, however, shows the complexity of the question.
Here is the context. Jackson State’s football program is part of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), which is part of the National College Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). As a member of the FCS and not the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), Jackson State is ineligible to compete for the highest national prizes in college football. Essentially, Sanders could go undefeated (as his team did this past season) and still not even be considered for the major national championship game and awards. Sanders undoubtedly used Jackson State as a steppingstone. However, the NCAA has essentially made Jackson State a steppingstone by design.
Supporting Black institutions is about more than financial investment. How do they fit into larger institutional arrangements? These are the truly pressing questions we need to ask. Jackson State’s place within the larger NCAA structure illustrates the institutional entanglement Black institutions face. The SWAC conference was founded in 1920 by athletic officials from six Texas HBCUs, a mix of public and private institutions. Over time, lack of funding forced the private schools like Huston-Tillotson to opt out of athletics, while the schools receiving state funding remained and new state-funded schools were added. Today, all 12 SWAC schools are publicly funded institutions. Without long-running government support enabling the conference to develop over time, there would be no Black college athletics at all. However, had HBCUs been placed into the right system, they would likely have the most dominant athletic programs in the United States.
It’s about structures
When thinking about what it means to support the Black school, we need to consider structures and systems. This is what makes the concept of supporting the Black K-12 public school uniquely challenging. First, what is a Black school? As an alum of an HBCU (Morehouse College), I can attest that the answer within higher education is relatively straightforward. Black colleges are institutions founded on the idea of Black scholarship and have carried, over time, the tradition of educating Black students. HBCUs are not exclusively Black; students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds attend HBCUs. However, the HBCU is unique in that, from the president’s office to the faculty to the cafeteria workers, everyone understands that the school’s mission is to educate Black students. HBCUs are strategically designed to educate Black people (Palmer, Davis, & Maramba, 2010).
Do we have any elementary and secondary public schools that are designed to educate Black students? According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, about 13% of Black students in K-12 districts attend schools that are at least 90% Black. Just over 40% of Black students attend schools with at least a majority of Black students (50% or more). In policy conversations, we consider these schools evidence of failed school desegregation efforts. They are the losers of an apartheid system where the white children get nice facilities and the best teachers, while Black children simply get what’s left (Kozol, 2005). Thus, the story of Black public education has been about the chase for the integrated school. The Black school is treated as the innermost circle of the inferno.
There are exceptions. In Chicago, students in the predominately Black Longfellow Elementary School are thriving academically, while learning from a curriculum that centers Black history and culture. In Los Angeles, King/Drew Magnet High School is 42% Black (and 55% Latino). It relies on a Black student achievement plan designed specifically for the purpose of providing Black students with a quality, 21st-century educational experience. In Atlanta, Westlake High School has been fostering high student achievement and college readiness within a student population that is 95% Black.
Despite the narratives circulating through education policy spaces, thriving institutions serving largely Black students do exist. What is impressive, though, is not that Black students thrive in Black schools. It’s that Black schools thrive despite lacking structural supports enabling them to do so. It’s their ability to put together undefeated seasons, despite not being considered for the most prestigious awards.
The Black-serving institution
So, how do we truly support Black K-12 schools? We must redesign educational structures. From a cultural standpoint, we must start thinking of the schools that Black students are “segregated into” as actual Black-Serving Institutions (BSIs). Schools should be able to identify as a BSI more openly, and this should even be a policy-relevant legal distinction that schools can qualify for. State colleges and universities should begin the tradition of forming formal relationships with and supporting BSIs the way state governments have historically supported HBCUs. The BSI also should clear the bureaucratic pathway for both more government and more philanthropic investment in Black public schools that are community-controlled. Most importantly, we, as a society, need to view Black K-12 schools as pipelines for the next generation of community leaders, intellectuals, and economic contributors, as opposed to seeing them as factories for dropouts and violent criminals. We start by creating the conditions for Black schools to train Black students both inside and outside the classroom. We begin with structure.
It’s the pride, however, that will make the BSI special. There is already a pride amongst many teachers and administrators working in schools serving Black students, but we need to give them more visibility and dignity. I chose to attend an HBCU because I wanted the pedigree. I wanted to be a part of something special; something that gives you a quiet confidence in the face of the constant challenges and doubts that you experience as a Black person in America. I wanted to tap into something bigger than me — something cosmological — that will be here long after I’m gone. I wanted an experiential and intellectual connection to a place I could simply call “home.”
At his introductory press conference in 2020, Deion Sanders cried from the podium, explaining, “These are tears just to establish how proud I am to stand before my people.” He paused, “I said to stand before my people.” Were the tears genuine? Who knows. But a superstar with an aura larger than an entire NFL field felt a need to express awe at Jackson State’s legacy.
Imagine if we show that kind of reverence for the public schools educating young Black kids across this country.
That’s primetime.
References
Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America. Crown.
Palmer, R.T., Davis, R.J., & Maramba, D.C. (2010). Role of an HBCU in supporting academic success for underprepared black males. Negro Educational Review, 61.
This article appears in the February 2023 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 5, pp. 58-59.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan E. Collins
Jonathan E. Collins is an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, the associate director of the Teachers College, Columbia University Center for Educational Equity, and the founder and director of the School Board and Youth Engagement (S-BYE) Lab.
