HBCU homecomings can be postponed but the spirit can’t be beat 

OPINION: Recent shootings at Morgan State and Bowie State may have cast a shadow over homecoming season, but the parties will go on — with an extra dose of caution.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Homecoming season is nearing its peak with festivities planned at 13 HBCUs on Saturday, among them Southern, Tennessee State and Virginia State. The following weekend is the calendar’s busiest, featuring 15 celebrations, with a lineup that includes Clark Atlanta, Fayetteville State and (you know) my Howard University.

Nothing compares to these sumptuous feasts of Black culture.

Anticipation rises annually for students and alums who can’t wait for the fun to begin. They arrange meet-ups and plot their strategy to attend step shows, forums, fashion shows, parades, day parties, receptions, night parties, tailgates, brunches and worship services. The football game is an optional centerpiece, with the band, dancers and cheerleaders as complementary attractions. 

These homecomings are akin to family reunions, a chance to momentarily forget your troubles and simply rejoice that the group exists. We mourn loved ones who passed since the last get-together and revel with everyone who made it through another year.

But life’s hard truths are never far off, capable of interrupting the merriment at any time. They can snap us back to reality in a flash — sometimes from a muzzle.

Gunfire at Morgan State last week led to the cancellation or postponement of remaining homecoming events, including the football game. Five people were shot and wounded, left with non-life-threatening injuries, as classes were canceled for the rest of the week. The incident marked the third consecutive year that a shooting occurred during homecoming week.

Roughly 35 miles away, Bowie State was also set to host its homecoming game on Oct. 7. The school showed support for its in-state sister school by offering free tickets to Morgan State students. The game was a 44-16 thumping from Virginia State and trouble-free. But shots were fired on campus later that night, injuring two 19-year-olds who were listed in stable condition. Initially, Monday classes were canceled before the school decided to call off the rest of the week.

As students and alums prepare to celebrate the remaining homecomings, thoughts and prayers coincide with apprehension and precautions. The party goes on, with prospects for violence deep in our minds and HBCU love filling our hearts.

Coppin State, an HBCU that shares Baltimore with Morgan State, held a prayer walk last week to signify their bond. “I have family in Spelman and I have people in Morehouse,” Coppin State sophomore Praise Alayode told the Baltimore Sun. “At HBCUs, we’re all family because we all went through the struggle. So when one person hurts, every person hurts with them, so even if you don’t know somebody, you know them.”

It doesn’t matter if your colors are red and black (Clark Atlanta), blue and white (Howard) or orange and green (Florida A&M). The HBCU family is like the Divine Nine, all repping red, black and green regardless of our organizations’ respective color combos. Our “rivalry” extends to good-natured trash talk and joning, but we’re in the battle together — even when cousins act a fool and start shooting.

HBCUs experienced a significant increase in media coverage over the last few years when Deion Sanders brought his spotlight to Jackson State as its head football coach. Someone once described athletics as the front porch of a university, not the most important room, but the most visible. Homecoming enjoys similar visibility, which amplifies the wrong thing if bullets fly during the party. The event — like sports and HBCU culture — has a unique way of uniting people across generations.

Morgan State president David K. Wilson said canceling homecoming wasn’t an easy decision, reached “after very careful — and at times — emotional deliberation with key stakeholders,” including student leaders. We can only imagine the psychic impact at our own schools after such a gut punch, losing the campus’s most-celebrated cultural cornerstone. There’s a financial toll, too, for the institution, vendors, businesses, alums and anyone with sunk costs. 

But it’s easy to side with the decision given the circumstances, which are fairly consistent at HBCUs and PWIs, high schools and elementary schools, churches and clubs, supermarkets and synagogues, mosques and music festivals, city streets and country roads, etc. and etc. Gun violence doesn’t discriminate.

My oldest daughter is a Morgan alum and my youngest is at Michigan State — where she sheltered from a shooter in February and sees daily reminders of the deadly act. One of my nephews graduated from Bowie State, about 15 minutes from my house. A sad story from somewhere in the nation is likely to make news soon.

Times like these make HBCU homecomings all the more appreciated. We don’t have to carve out space like our siblings at PWIs. That’s no shade to them because we all experience racism. Theirs is faced on campus while ours is faced in statehouses, where HBCUs have been underfunded by $12 billion.

Nevertheless, there’s no place like home, and we look forward to the annual pilgrimage. Morgan State will prove it next year, and I might join them.

Meanwhile, I need a new ‘fit because it’s almost time to hit the yard. And being an oldhead, I’m definitely following Panama Jackson’s advice.

Be careful out there.

Deron Snyder, from Brooklyn, is an award-winning columnist who lives near D.C. and pledged Alpha at HU-You Know! He’s reaching high, lying low, moving on, pushing off, keeping up, and throwing down. Got it? Get more at blackdoorventures.com/deron.

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