Sites of Immanent Social Critique: HBCUs and the Generation of 21st Century Polylectical Discourse

Introduction

In a society, such as that of the United States, whose founding documents are predicated upon claims of universal equality, assessing the continued social and cultural value of sustaining America’s history of segregation by maintaining what could be considered atavistic, race-assigned, public and private colleges, remains an open axiological question in post-Modern American society. With the loss of the traditional roles of these institutions as legal necessities, contingent upon segregation, for the education of marginalized African-American populations, the future and identity of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) has been called into question. Inquiries into the validity of sustaining segregated institutions began in earnest in the last quarter of the 20^th and have continued into the 21^st century (National Public Radio [NPR], 2013). However, questions of race identity remain highly motivating socio-cultural catalysts for discourse in the first quarter of the 21^st century (Global Exchange, 2020). The following discussion considers the social importance of historically black institutions as crucial sites of immanent critique and polylectical discourse, producing scholars and cultural critics who have offered significant challenges to the status quo conception of American “exceptionalism”, and how museums on the campuses of HBCUs have helped shape the foundational concerns of a 21^st century re-imagining of American identity and shared values (Lipset, 1997).

HBCUs are participants in the established structures and conventional organizations of academia, yet, they simultaneously have produced thinkers, writers, and public intellectuals who, over the course of American history, have offered extraordinary challenges to those structures, even while often excluded from mainstream opportunities. This dual role of participant and outsider permits HBCUs to retain a crucial function as potential sites of immanent social critique. The continuing socio-cultural complexities of race-based reasoning in contemporary society, and the historic perceptions, fostered by mainstream academia, of scholars identified with research undertaken at HBCUs, has served to mitigate the voices of advocates for social transformation engaging with ideas mediated through the HBCU lens. However, events in 2021, such as the well-publicized controversy around the denial of tenure to writer, journalist, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Nikole Hannah-Jones, formerly of the primarily white institution (PWI), the University of North Carolina, demonstrate important social considerations for the sustained presence of HBCUs. Hannah-Jones resolved the issue of her highly political rejection for tenure by the University’s conservative trustee board (which later, under public pressure, sought to amend their initial, politically motivated deferral) by transferring her abilities, scholarship, connections, and talents to historically-black Howard University in Washington, D.C. Her action clearly points to some continued role for the HBCU as an important option in the post-Modern reality of defining our evolving American cultural identities (Hannah-Jones, 2021). This article will interrogate the potential and actual roles of selected HBCUs as contributors to the interpretation of cultural phenomena, including the presence of museums on their campuses, which, as institutions within institutions, serve as public educational tools, and guardians of collective memory. These museum resources may be understood as sites for the examination of assertions of and relationships of power, based in culture, tradition, and aesthetics.