Students at Black US colleges wield political power ahead of Election Day

Source: msn/Reuters

10h


HBCUs were once the only places where Black Americans could pursue higher education when discriminatory laws barred them from attending predominantly white universities. Attracting celebrities and politicians, the festivities featured step shows - percussive, stomping and clapping dance routines - by Black fraternities and sororities. Gospel singers poured their hearts out. Models strutted down runways in shiny chainmail tops and floor-length fur coats under blue and purple lights.

Marching bands played and swayed while crowds moved with the music before a football showdown with a rival HBCU. "HBCUs aren't just schools for Black students — they're homes," said Heaston, a 21-year-old sophomore from Detroit. Amid all this, zealous volunteers engaged potential voters, urging them to exercise their power as citizens to be heard.

Homecoming weekends in many battleground states had extra significance this year, weeks before the Nov. 5 election with Howard University graduate Kamala Harris, a Democrat, running for the White House against Republican former President Donald Trump. Young Americans could play a crucial role in the race, with many voting for the first time in a presidential election.

Heaston, who hails from the swing state of Michigan, helped coordinate early voting initiatives like "Walk to the Polls," which gathered students to walk less than a mile to vote at the campus' polling site. HBCU campuses were pulsing with excitement as generations gathered, knowing that Harris has a chance of becoming the first HBCU graduate in the Oval Office.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/students-at-black-us-colleges-wield-political-power-ahead-of-election-day/ar-AA1tnsCc