Shelter in a Time of Storm

“This vivid exploration of an important topic is a must-read for anyone interested in higher education and HBCUs in particular.”—Library Journal

“A welcome addition to the history of higher education and the contemporary scholarship on student activism, social movements, and leadership. . . . A powerful reminder that black colleges were not just a consequence of de jure segregation. They have been, and continue to be, a symbolic space that affirms the humanity and agency of black youth.”—Academe

“Favors . . . details the integral role of black colleges in nurturing 'communitas' and the 'unwritten second curriculum' . . . which spearheaded activism among African Americans from the nadir of race relations (after Reconstruction) to the present day . . . Favors describes the second curriculum and communitas not as a subversive plot against American democracy, but instead as a beacon of hope for all people. Given recent spates of racial unrest across the nation and on college campuses, this book delivers a counternarrative that is at once historic and prescient.”—CHOICE

“Well documented and richly detailed. . . . An important contribution to a comprehensive understanding of the long struggle for civil rights.”—Journal of American History

“A tour de force. . . . By recovering the legacy of HBCUs in fostering generations of leadership and activism, Shelter in a Time of Storm offers a bold vision of the role that black colleges can still play for today’s generation of college students and the issues they—and the rest of American society—currently face.”—American Historical Review

“Poignant. . . . Delves deeply into issues of student activism at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and sets out to write a more complex history of Black colleges.”—African American Review

“Jelani M. Favors has written the most profound, thorough, and nuanced work ever on the role of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in educating and developing generations of the Black student activists who shaped and reshaped the long struggle for freedom and equality. Reading his book awakens us to the fact that Black freedom fighters were not sudden creations of various social movements, but products of long-standing intellectual ideas and cultural norms cultivated within the walls of HBCUs. Anyone curious about the historical wellspring of Black student activism must read this lucid and painstaking presentation that traces the academic and social molding of generations of activists from the founding of the first HBCU to the apex of the Black Power movement. No student of the long freedom struggle can overlook Shelter in a Time of Storm.” — James D. Anderson, author of The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935

“I have been waiting for a prodigious researcher and storyteller to reconstruct what has never been fully reconstructed: the story of historically Black colleges and universities’ influence on Black activism. In Shelter in a Time of Storm, Jelani Favors has told that story, revealing how HBCUs have been the most fertile womb of Black activism in America throughout their history.” — Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

“Dramatically countering existing narratives, this book conveys the diversity of political thought and leadership at HBCUs, illustrating the versatility of Black institutions. With lively prose, this cross-section of HBCUs, viewed from Reconstruction through the Nadir through the birth of the modern civil rights movement, provides great insight on the evolution of possibilities that revealed themselves to Black people.” — Stefan Bradley, Loyola Marymount University

“Jelani Favors’s superb account of the long history of activism, idealism, and race consciousness at historically Black colleges and universities will forever change the way we think about Black higher education in the United States. A brilliant study, Dr. Favors shows how generations of Black students and faculty forged ‘blueprints for Black liberation’ that defied the state’s plans for social control and submission. Truly shelters in the storm, Black campuses nurtured minds and protected bodies from the ravages of American racism. Jelani Favors has finally given them much-deserved scholarly attention.” — Martha Biondi, author of The Black Revolution on Campus