Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are powerful and important American institutions. Cheryl Mango and Lisa Winn Bryan explore the culture, currency, and legacy of HBCUs and ask–is there space to critique an institution they love?
Featuring
- Cheryl Mango: Virginia Humanities HBCU Scholar Fellow, Associate Professor of History at Virginia State University, Founding executive Director of the National HBCU Studies Data Collection and Research Center at Virginia State University
- Lisa Winn Bryan, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, Community Outreach Manager for Preservation Virginia
Highlights
Transcript
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I call HBCUs experts in culture and acculturation.
Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan: Oooh I like that.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I think the process of turning a formerly enslaved population into a thriving professional class, is highly under-appreciated in the global human experience.
Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan: Yes
[Opening Credits]
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Welcome to In Common with Virginia Humanities. I’m Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Community Outreach Manager for Preservation Virginia.
We are in the historic House on Market in Petersburg, on Market Street. This space is beautiful. And this is a nonprofit community space for art, culture, and connection.
So I am with …
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I am Dr. Cheryl Mango, associate professor of history at Virginia State University, as well as the Founding Executive Director of the National HBCU Studies Data Collection and Research Center at Virginia State University.
What I’m trying to do is in real time give us a systematic way to understand the HBCU experience. Versus, you know, it’s one thing to say, “I love HBCUs.” But why? How do we define that? How do we write about it? Who else has written about it?
And who’s helping us stay here? Who’s helping us continue our existence forever and ever? Let’s kind of.. we’ve got our topic, so let’s get into it. Let’s talk about the origin of HBCUs, and how they started. So, can you? And you’re a professor of history,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Right, I’m a professor of history, and you know early HBCU history. I actually like to kind of start with Africa. I think that it’s a tendency to connect HBCUs with slavery, which they do emerge in slavery, but black people have a long history of education.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and if you look from a scientific lens, and I love about even the hunter-gatherer culture, and all that. I mean, they were humans, and they had education systems, and even the first formal education systems emerged in Africa, so I think it’s important to state that, because I think it’s kind of this misnomer that Black people’s first experience with education was via HBCU through slavery.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, one of the things that I’m interested in is the support of the HBCU, where you have white philanthropists, affluent families that have honestly benefited from the free labor of enslavement and have amassed this wealth, whether it’s steel or railroads or banking. Can you speak to a little bit about that?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, you know, it’s so interesting. Yes, they are Black, but largely with the assistance of white philanthropists, and so forth. One of the reasons why I created HBCU studies is because I believe that they needed, we needed critical analysis, so a large part of my training, and what I do is I like to critique HBCUs, and I try to find a way for us to critique them in a way that’s comfortable, because we are very protective of HBCUs, as we should be–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: –and I think that that’s what has allowed them to survive, but in terms of the white philanthropist that you mentioned, I think that they lose a lot of street cred. I’m just gonna be honest, in a lot of spaces, and even if you look at what Carter G. Woodson was talking about–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: yeahhhh
Dr. Cheryl Mango: –in The Miseducation of the Negro, the founder of Black History Month. He really was not a fan of HBCUs, I’m not trying to be a negative, but he wasn’t a fan because he didn’t believe that they were down enough with the black experience, so you know,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: And when you talk about that miseducation, and he’s talking about how you’re being taught the classics, and Greek, and Latin, and so you’re not talking about Negro spirituals, you’re not talking about the scientists and the mathematicians that are in these black diaspora spaces, you’re being taught the curriculum that you’re being taught, and so I think that’s what he was trying to steer our community away from, like, look at what you’re being taught,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Right
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: That’s not the essence of who we are. So, I get what you’re saying,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and that kind of leads me back to why I created HBC studies and HBC history, because I didn’t feel like. So we could properly measure the greatness of these institutions as well as properly correct some of our challenges without a systematic critical analysis curricula based model that spoke to our experience.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: What you’re making me think about is this whole, and we can get into this, this whole Hampton Tuskegee model of industrial education versus the classics. So, what are your thoughts behind that? Because there’s this push initially, and it’s, it is a push from the white philanthropist, because here is a resource as far as cheap labor is concerned. You have all these emancipated people. What are you going to do with them? How do you educate them? So let’s go there. Let’s talk about this model between the classics, the humanities, the liberal arts versus this industrial push.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Well, a lot of it was about control as well, like you don’t want these–if you have a newly freed enslaved population, you are very concerned with how they are educated and what they learn, and a lot of it was about control, about being in control of black minds after slavery.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: but they actually created something that was very great. Um, I think that HBCUs are a place that actually works, like it’s something that America did well.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: it’s like it’s something that white people did good, like y’all did something very good for black people. It works. It’s something that makes black people happy,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: but that control issue too.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: It is a control issue
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: I’m gonna tell you when to pray, I’m gonna tell you how to dress, I’m gonna tell you –
Dr. Cheryl Mango: –The paternalism, yeah the paternalism–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: I’m on your board of visitors, I’m on your, I’m your president, and so a lot of people don’t know that either, that you know, not until probably around the 1920-ish period, you’ve got a white leader, you have white men leading these institutes, primarily. Yeah, you know,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: So, do you think, would you say that HBCUs are very complex, then within the American experience? Definitely, they represent all these complexity.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: And so, let me ask you a counter question. So, you know, I tell my students just about every class that diasporic people are not a monolith, all black folks are not the same, so I also feel that all black institutions are not the same, so you can’t compare a Spelman college – I love Spelman, so Spelman College to even a Bennett college to the two remaining historically black female campuses, you can’t compare a Howard to a Virginia union, or more. I mean, every school has a different found a personality, I think
Dr. Cheryl Mango: It’s culture.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: You know, it’s interesting. I call HBCUs experts in culture and acculturation.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Oh, I like that.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I think the process of turning a formerly enslaved population into a thriving professional class is, is, is highly underappreciated in the global human experience, and essentially you have the Harlem Renaissance,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: yeah, talk about that
Dr. Cheryl Mango: about 50 or 60 years, right after enslavement. So, you have a literary movement of black people, right after we went through nearly 250 years of legalized anti-literacy, and that is only possible, although everybody that was a part of the Harlem Renaissance did not attend the HBCU, but it’s largely possible because of the professional training that the HBCU,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: and these black-like think tanks, yeah, spaces that occurring where you’re learning
Dr. Cheryl Mango: how to professional music, you’re learning poetry, you’re learning how to engage with your environment through literacy
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: because I even let’s go, even go back to Booker T. Washington, because I feel like, you know, so historically, and again, you’re the history professor, but you know Frederick Douglass is now gone, Booker T. Washington has his period, he’s gone, and I think to me that’s when things started to open up. It’s almost like he had a lot of control with the fundraising, and he was connected to a lot of the white philanthropists that he was able to, who wanted to hold on to this industrial style of teaching, and then he passes away, and W.E.B. Du Bois, you know, they didn’t really like, agree, or you know, I don’t want to say didn’t get along, but you know, they didn’t agree, you know, with the approach, and so I feel like that’s when we were able to share, or start to share more fully and freely our music, our literature, and so you get into that Harlem Renaissance period.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Right, and I think that what’s more, what’s instructional about that is that HBCUs demonstrated the capacity of black people to, from even in the Harlem Renaissance to being black coaches to being black quarterbacks, like we just led in so many areas, like being a black point guard, being a woman, a woman educated, like black HBCUs led in so many areas beyond the black community.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Absolutely, yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and I study. I’m a presidential historian, and it’s not many black presidential historians, but I so happen to study the American presidency and HBCUs.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: So, which.. which.. so we’ll just jump into that. So, which president is.. I’m thinking, which I love, Jimmy Carter, but who.. which president do you feel, you know in starting the White House initiative, which one took the most care and concern and focus on HBCUs in your opinion?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Believe it or not, I would say it was Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Really?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, Republicans and conservatives have always been supporters of HBCU, and one of the reasons, I mean, if you, I mean, we can say that maybe if you don’t like integration, you know, like, hey, well, we could just fund you as long as you’ll stay there, it’s that’s one reason, but HBCUs epitomize pull yourself up by your bootstraps ideology, but Reagan actually did, and this is my book, what my Virginia humanities research is funding.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Okay, my husband’s Jamaican, so in Jamaica, big up to Virginia Humanities for your fellowship
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Right, big up to Virginia Humanities. But Ronald Reagan had the opportunity to close, totally eliminate HBCUs, and he did not, he did not, Jimmy Carter created the White House initiative on HBCUs, but he did it under pressure from the black, his black constituency. It was real questions over, like, you know, a lot of liberals kind of did not believe. They was like, well, if we want to get rid of segregation, why would we have HBCUs?
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Wow, yeah, like, why do you need these spaces? Yeah, because people ask those questions all the time. Yeah, you know, why do you need a black school? Why do you need a black organization, or fraternity, or sorority? Like, why do you need a black church? Like, Sunday morning, you know. Here’s the phrase everyone says: Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week on a Sunday morning.
But I wanted to talk about, like, the survival piece, and you know–I don’t even know if I can say her name–but Dr. Belle Whelan, who was the president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, you know, said to me one time, people are saying, oh, HBCUs are closing, HBCUs are closing, and she’s retired now from SACS, but she said, just as many white schools are closing you know, and I think it’s the number, what is it, 107 HBCUs are in existence now, and this whole thing of because I have a connection, we have to talk about HBCU connections, but my mother went to St. Paul’s College, and St. Paul’s College is now closed, but there is a museum and archive space in Lawrenceville still. So, what are your thoughts about the survival or the existence and continued thriving of HBCUs?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Well, quite frankly, I’m concerned as someone who’s a presidential historian and someone who tries to think critically about the HBCU experience. I do think it’s a great experience. I’m a product of it. My dad went to the NFL playing under the legendary Grambling State University coach, Eddie Robinson, my mother went to Grambling, graduated. My whole, you know, I grew up on the street named after me because of my, because of my HBCU lineage, but I am concerned. I think that we do have some strength. But it’s very, I’m concerned about, you know, our hyper dependency on, like, we’re just extremely vulnerable financially.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes, I agree
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I mean, the population that we serve has significant financial challenges.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, and you know, when you say that, and shout out to Dr. Makola Abdullah, the president of Virginia State University, he said to me during my research for my dissertation, he said, you know, at that time I was working at Virginia Union, so I have to shout out Dr. Hakeem Lucas as well at Virginia Union, but he said, for a Virginia state or Virginia Union, for example, to lose a million dollars or to be impacted, that’s a great impact to lose a million dollars. Yes, and if you look at the finances and you look at the endowments of the HBCUs, and I saw this with the United Negro College Fund stat that collectively, collectively of all HBCUs, the endowment totals 5 billion,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: right
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: And there are institutions, and some of them are Ivy Leagues, they’re very old institutions, like a Harvard, that has more than 5 billion in endowment, but collective, that is scary, that is vulnerable. You know that vulnerability of an institution, you know that that can impact an institution if something were to occur and you lose a million. I also think a part of that vulnerability and I raised money for 22 years of my life in higher ed, so when I think about that catching up or the loss of income, and you see a lot of, you know, lawsuits that are happening now at HBCUs, where they’re going, especially the state institutions going to the state or to the commonwealth or to the legislator and legislation, and saying, hey, we, you owe us, you know, this institution received, you know, this amount of money, and we should have been receiving this income, and we have it, so you’re trying to catch up, and I think that’s a part of the vulnerability.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: that you’re losing this funding that should have been coming to you anyway.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, and is that vulnerability is the financial vulnerability, and it’s going back to this issue that I’m trying to help the public understand, which is HBCUs existing as majority black institutions legally in 2026 and beyond.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I think that that is a serious question that HBCUs are going to, unfortunately, maybe have to really understand that process, the legal process involved in our capacity to exist as majority black institutions in 2026 and beyond, and this is going back to Reagan. This issue came up before: are HBCU segregated institutions? This has actually been a seminal legal question that that had to be answered, and it was answered,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and it was codified that they are not, but that doesn’t mean that things can’t change. We saw, we’ve seen a lot of questions that we thought was existing precedent change, and I’m very concerned about that, I’m very concerned about how we navigate inside of a post race based politics, or inside of race based politics,
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: and you, that makes me think of another point too, that you know, and for those for our audience, you know, you don’t just wake up one morning and say, I think I’ll be an HBCU. You, there’s a designation that is a federal government designation to be an HBCU, so they’re not going to be any more HBCUs. And so you have to meet certain historical criteria to be classified as an HBCU, so that dwindling or that vulnerability, you know, and it is sad to talk about
Dr. Cheryl Mango: it is
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: it is a reality that we have to consider, and I’m sure all of the presidents are thinking about this constantly. This balance between those revenue streams, you know, enrollment drives tuition, so you’re very dependent on those students going and choosing HBCUs to determine the livelihood.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Right. And when you talk about the magic associated with HBCUs, it is that it is a, and that’s why I call them cultural marvels, because what would make a student drive by a nice white institution to go to what might be considered less fancy facilities
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: the amenities, and all of the options.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yeah, this is a culture, the HBCU culture is currency, so what I’m saying is, while Harvard might have all of this money, the HBCU culture is what they cannot buy. The HBCU culture–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: yeah, you can’t put a price tag on that, right?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: And that is the survival mechanism of HBCUs. It is that calling, it is the love and the heart. When you explain to me about your love, and your.. and there’s so many people who did not necessarily attend an HBCU, who love HBCUs. It’s white people who love HBCUs, it’s people–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: but you cannot deny the impact, because I didn’t attend an HBCU, a lot of people think I did, I talk about Spelman so much that people think I went to Spelman. But I could not avoid it. I was surrounded by it, my parents, my aunties, my uncles, you know, and that was the only space they could go to.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: exactly
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: they didn’t have the option,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: exactly
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: So let’s talk about when we talk about numbers and data, and how we sustain ourselves. What are your thoughts about how do we do that in this day and time?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I think one of the most under, and what I’m, and I’m not saying, I’m saying that HBCUs are powerful, yeah, because in spite of not having money, I’m saying that what’s overlooked, we talk about the NRA lobby, that HBCU lobby, I argue, is the most powerful lobby in American history to be able, from the UNCF and Thurgood Marshall and White House initiative, to be able to sustain these institutions to be able to survive, quote unquote, anti-DEI politics. I think, in terms of survival, I think that first I will say that I think that the HBCU lobby is one of the amongst the most talented lobbyist groups. in world history to be able to sustain –
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: and advocate and push–
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and advocate, for the formerly enslaved who were denied education to be able to–everybody else has kind of in the new reality been having some challenges in higher education, but HBCUs, and, and I’m saying that it’s yes, it might be some spirituality associated with that, if you believe that, but it’s also because of the lobbyists. So, in terms of our survival, I think first I would say that we have a capable, very highly capable lobbyist organization that are thinking about these questions, that are seriously thinking about these questions, but it is going to be tough. But the magic, the way HBCUs continue to survive, I was very concerned, and I’ll say this, and I try to be nonpartisan because I’m a presidential historian, but I was very concerned about Kamala Harris having her campaign on Howard’s campus
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: why so?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I just, I just think that I thought that that was politically dangerous for HBCUs. The way that we have survived, I argue, through our cross-party affiliation. We are not totally Republican, we’re not totally Democrat, and it’s no way that we couldn’t. We’re in Mississippi. HBCUs are majority in Mississippi and Alabama, Texas.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: in the South, right
Dr. Cheryl Mango: It’s no way we could have survived if we were just associated with the Democratic Party, and, and so I think that one of the ways that we continue to survive is by being bipartisan, because it’s going to require, we require government support for our survival.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: I also think, though, I’m gonna tell you what I liked about it
Dr. Cheryl Mango: okay
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: I also like the fact that she was not hiding, you know, she’s connected, she’s not hiding the fact that, you know, she went to an HBCU, she, you know, was initiated into, and I’ll just say that, because Alpha Kappa Alpha, but you know the fact that she celebrated her background as well, you know, and I think a lot of times white candidates or non-black candidates are not shy about discussing.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Well, I understand, I understand. But with the politics, the rage. I agree with you. I’m very proud of her. I’m very proud of her. Words can’t describe, you know, but politics is also another thing as well. And so I was concerned about that. I was concerned about that, because I understood that that Ronald Reagan could have shut HBCUs down
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: that’s a lot of power, you know, for a person, one person to have,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: well, well, his administration, yeah
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: yeah, but that the leadership of the country could say something that is
Dr. Cheryl Mango: yes. And so that’s what I was concerned about. I’m very proud of her, but I was concerned about that. I’m, I think that HBCUs being apolitical has been a part of their survival mechanism
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: but could you also appreciate the exposure that it brought towards to the HBCU?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Of course, I claim it. I’m a part, my success is a part of Kamala Harris’s success as an HBCU candidate. So, tell me about, do you feel, because I’ve noticed–I’m so happy about your support of HBCUs and stuff like that–so how do you feel that you did not attend? Does it make you feel..I attended undergrad at an HBCU
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: shout out your institution,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Grambling State University. But I have noticed that I have African Americans who did not attend HBCUs. Sometimes it seems like it’s a little something there.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, well, you know, my.. and again, this is as a professor of Black Studies, you know, I am a part of the diasporic community, and I come from a lineage of people who could not go to, you know, to PWI, predominantly white institutions, and so, you know, it was a matter of circumstance for me, and I think that’s, you know, what happens in, you know, in my generation, but when I was in high school, and I was excelling, and you know, you get to this point, you know, I told my mom, here, go again with Spelman, I said, I want to go to Spelman, and she says, oh, you, you can’t go to the inner city, you can’t handle Atlanta, you’re from Lynchburg, Virginia. How can you handle Atlanta? I said, okay, I’ll go to Howard, and she same thing, Washington DC. I don’t think little girl from Lynchburg can handle Washington DC, so I said, okay, I’ll go to Hampton. My aunt went to Hampton, so I applied to Hampton, and it was timing, because I literally ended up going to James Madison University. They gave me an entire package, and look at the trends, and I’m about to tell my age here, but you know, in the 80s, in the late 80s, there’s this trend, and particularly in Virginia, where SCHEV, the State Council of Higher Education, is allowing these programs that you can’t classify now because of all the DEI things you know as black freshman weekends, minority weekends, and so black students are being invited to predominantly white campuses to check it out, and I was a part of that trend that’s happening in the late 80s, and so that’s how I ended up, you know, and it’s not that I didn’t even consider, because I think there are some black folks who, and again, we’re not a monolith, who don’t even look at the HBCU space, and for me, you know, being a preacher’s kid, my parents didn’t make a lot of money, this was the choice, yeah. I had to go to JMU. They were paying for everything, you know. It was just a better choice for me at the time, but it’s not that I didn’t want to go,
Dr. Cheryl Mango: right
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: And so it’s my environment, it’s my circumstance during that same thing. My brother, he applied to UVA, you know, but our parents are products of HBCUs, and they didn’t have a choice. They couldn’t, maybe, you know, looking at their generation, they didn’t have the option because of segregation. And in fact, my mother came out of high school right after integration, I think she graduated like 62 or something like that, and went to St. Paul’s College. She was a singer, and she got this scholarship to be in the choir, and they toured, and they went, you know, and I, and I get, you know, goosebumps every time I go down to St. Paul’s College Museum, and see, you know, the archival things that are there, and look at the yearbooks, and hear the quiet recordings of the choir from the 60s, and again, I think that speaks to that nostalgia, that heart tie. So, you know, to be a part, I am a part of the black community, and so that my academic choice was to go to a PWI, for me, I think it was a choice of circumstance. And for me it’s the history that compels me, that draws me, and I’ve just written about it, researched it, and just, you know, gotten as close as I possibly could in doing that.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yeah, it’s a great, and it’s so interesting, because I always knew exactly which HBCU I was going to–
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: because you, did you grow up around Grambling?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, it was like, you know, legacy admissions, we hear a lot about that, but for HBCUs, you know, we know legacy admissions are huge. Yeah, and so I always knew from the time I was a child that I was going to this HBCU, it was no questions.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Did you feel like you have a choice?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Well I have some uncles that went to our rivalry HBCU, Southern.. I don’t even know if I want to mention them! But um, but no, I love them, but I remember, like, being six years old, and the Bayou Classic came on TV, and it was like, who are you cheering for, Southern or Grambling? And I remember I said Southern, and they were like, we’re gonna put you out, and I don’t know, I was like … so I knew from that time that choice, like, it was, it was that serious.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes, it is, it is serious.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: So I always knew that I was going to that institution, and I had some great experiences there as well, you know, having my professors mentor me and stuff like that, and so it was really a great experience, it really was, but it was right by Louisiana Tech, and you know, they had the pool, and they had all of these new facilities, and all of that, but it’s interesting. It didn’t really bother us. It’s like we never felt inferior.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah
Dr. Cheryl Mango: it didn’t really bother us.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: You were in your space, yeah.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: It’s like five minutes away, literally. I don’t want you to put too much personal, but how would you compare, like, your professional work experience working at each institution?
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: You just feel the difference, right? Everybody looks like you, okay? Every, your professors. I’ve had students come up to me at VC and say, you are the first black professor that I’ve ever had. I’ve been here four years, and you’re the first. That’s scary. That’s not a good thing. And I also teach a course on race and racism, so that’s another very.. and again, in a predominantly white space to have those conversations. It’s just.. it can get, you know, they’re ready to talk about it. They want to talk about it, so
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and you know, interestingly, I have challenges talking about certain black topics at an HBCU. One of the most difficult classes that I ever taught was hip hop history. It was very difficult for me to get around to be able to critiquing hip hop, and that was a challenge for me, and talking about religion. Talking about religion in an African American HBCU classroom space is a challenge for me.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: What’s what’s making it difficult? What are the things you’re running into?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: it’s difficult because it’s something we love, something that we hold, we love.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes
Dr. Cheryl Mango: and it’s certain things that we just should not be touched. And so you know that is a very difficult course for me to teach, talking about religion, anything related to that. It’s like, okay, you know, I know what I was taught in Sunday school, and you, you know, let me come here and throw holy water on you
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: and you’re bringing this academic perspective, like I’m trying to tell you in the context of the history or of the religion, and people are almost taking it personally.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Exactly. It’s interesting that, although I’m in a black space, I do also struggle sometimes with certain topics as well, so I can imagine, you know, being at a PWI and teaching.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, and so you know, I’ll ask you this question: You feel like you didn’t miss anything having not gone to a PWI, or was that not even a thought?
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I went to a PWI for my master’s.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: uh huh, and I think graduate school is a little different than the undergraduate experience
Dr. Cheryl Mango: yeah.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: How did that? Did you feel like, oh, this is very different
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I felt different, I felt very different.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Did you feel like the HBCU had prepared you in a certain way to kind of..
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Oh yeah, I was very prepared. I was actually surprised that, and I went.. I actually, it’s only two PhD programs at an HBCU in history, and because of my master’s experience at a PWI, I was like, I want to try to go back to a HBCU for my PhD, and the way that we were able to engage with the topics was completely different at the HBCU versus at the PWI. Like, at the PWI we were like, does racism even exist? You know, whereas
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: [laughs] Yes
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I was like, uh okay. But then when I got to the PhD, or when I get to the HBCU, the way we talked about race we like, can you believe? Oh my god, look at what she just said in this writing? Oh my god …
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: like when you’re with your people, it’s a whole different
Dr. Cheryl Mango: yes, like, can you believe? Oh no, I’m over what he wrote. I can’t believe this happened.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: See I feel.. I feel the converse, you know, like being at, you know, talking about there are not as many HBCUs that have a black studies program. And so you know that converse, you know, but I can go to a committee meeting and I might be the only black faculty person on the committee, so you know that’s very different, that feels very–even the fundraising aspect, you know, at a predominantly white school versus an HBCU, you know, we’re targeting different alumni giving, all of the things, just feel–and I’m going to a feeling, but the atmosphere is just different
Dr. Cheryl Mango: it is, and interestingly enough, I had a really, really great experience with my department, but I have been the only African American, the only black tenured or tenure-track person in my department since I’ve been there. But I’ve had a great experience with my colleagues. So it’s interesting that inside the HBCU that I’ve also had this experience with this interaction with race … that people probably think that HBCUs have all black professors
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes, that’s not true.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: We do have majority black, but not all.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Definitely. And that in the different spaces, you have similar challenges. Like trying to pursue tenure at an HBCU and trying to pursue tenure at a PWI. They’re both intense. They both, you have to, you know, be able to demonstrate that you are worthy of tenure. You have to show the scholarly prowess, and yeah, which kind of brings me to something I want to ask you, what are you up to these days? I know you’re involved, and your’re a writer
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, so fortunately I believe that I have moved forward with securing a book contract, from UVA Press on the American Presidency and HBCUs. I’m so happy about that via Virginia Humanities. I’m just so thankful for Virginia Humanities
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yay, shout out to Virginia Humanities.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes, and so I’m so thankful for the opportunities working on a grant, going to various archives, presidential libraries, and working on HBCU studies, and trying to, me trying to really forward HBCU studies, like it’s not really, it’s a thing, but it’s not really a thing, but I’m hoping in the future that people will catch on to what I’m trying to say.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: I love that.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: I’m hoping that people will catch on to this theory and this practice and understand that works before the term HBCU studies came about exists under that umbrella, works that in the future will exist under that umbrella, and will continue to engage with me in understanding the HBCU experience as a global experience, as a human experience, as a political experience, not just a black experience, and that’s really a part of the work that I’m engaged in is helping the larger public understand HBCUs as a beyond the black experience, it’s a black experience, but it has implications for all of humanity.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yeah, there are spaces that must be preserved.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: And change is coming, we know that, but there are so many spaces that are just, you know, in this, like this house here, and I’m just looking on the wall, I mean, everybody’s on this wall, from Nina Simone to, you know, there’s a preservation of her, her childhood home happening right now in North Carolina, Earth, Wind & Fire. Like all of these things that are so important to our history, to our preservation, to our survival as black folks.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: and we’re assigned to it. We got to do it. We have to do it.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: And I would say, and from my perspective, as kind of trying to create HBCU studies, that the curriculum is our preservation space at HBCUs, like we need to embed our experience in the understanding of like, we need students that’s in finance to understand HBCU finance. We need students that’s in public relations to understand mass communication and HBCU public relations, we need students and political science to, we cannot afford coming from slavery, not to understand. We don’t have the luxury to just rest on our homecoming culture.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes
Dr. Cheryl Mango: We have to make this a systematic understanding for preservation.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Yes, so I think this work is important.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Yes
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: These institutions are vital.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: Critical. Yeah, they are.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: We have to do it.
Dr. Cheryl Mango: They are, and they’re critical to the nation. They’re critical to the black community, but but they’re critical to the nation, and ultimately the world as well.
Dr. Lisa Wynn Bryan: Definitely. Yeah.
