Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party and strategist for the Movement for Black Lives, said HBCUs and independent Black institutions are targeted because they represent …
By Cheyanne Mumphrey and Jeff Martin | Associated Press
Nearly six decades after that bombing by the Ku Klux Klan, the FBI is now investigating last week’s bomb threats against at least 17 historically Black colleges and universities across the U.S. Thompson said the threats underscore the need to teach new generations the history of violence targeting people of color so the lessons of the past can be applied to the present.
University campuses are considered “soft targets,” but “they’re not as soft as they used to be,” said Robert McCrie, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. The bomb threats against Black institutions are deeply rooted in U.S. history. In Alabama, people used to call Birmingham “Bombingham” because of how many bombs and bomb threats occurred, Thompson said. Among the many victims: the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a civil rights leader whose home was damaged on Christmas Day in 1956 by 16 sticks of dynamite placed beneath his bedroom window. When a KKK member suggested he leave town, Shuttlesworth responded that “I wasn’t saved to run,” U.S. Rep.
“We know from history that in spite of external threats, HBCUs are resilient institutions that will persist through all forms of adversity,” the statement said. “The mere existence of Black schools, Black churches, Black political organizations and Black business are a threat,” he said. “We see upswings in these attacks as backlash to Black resistance, the exercising of independent Black political power, the influence of Black social movements.”
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