HBCUs UNDER THREAT: Why Refusing to Mourn Charlie Kirk Became a Threat to White Supremacy

Disclaimer: Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were originally founded to educate African Americans, but they now serve a diverse student body. African Americans comprise about 70% of HBCU enrollment today, with students from Latino, Asian, white, Indigenous, and multiracial backgrounds making up the rest. HBCUs are part of the American educational fabric—and any threat to them endangers all communities.

A Chilling Pattern Emerges

Less than 24 hours after the high-profile killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, at least six HBCUs—including Alabama State University and Southern University—were forced into lockdown after receiving bomb or active-shooter threats, according to ABC News. Campuses halted activities, issued emergency alerts, and scrambled security personnel as students sheltered in place, afraid and confused.

The immediate fact pattern is stark: authorities have already identified the primary suspect, and he is not Black, Latino, Asian, or Native American—he is a white male from one of the whitest states in America. This did not happen in Little Rock, Chicago, Baltimore, or Washington, D.C. Yet here we are: Black campuses are under siege not because they cheered Kirk’s death, but because they refused to care—because their emotional indifference defied white supremacy’s unwritten rule that white grief must be universal.

The Psychology of White Supremacy: Grief as a Mandate

This is what too many refuse to name: a key component of white supremacy is the presumption that white feelings and white values define reality for everyone else. If they mourn, we are expected to mourn. If they rage, we are expected to rage. If they demand silence, we are expected to fall silent.

And when we don’t—when Black people refuse to perform grief for a man who mocked Juneteenth, dismissed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, and denigrated our humanity—that is when the backlash comes. That is why HBCUs are being threatened.

The threats are not about Charlie Kirk as an individual; they are about punishing Black people for not carrying the burden of white grief. This dynamic is as old as America itself. It’s the same reflex that fueled lynch mobs who murdered Black men for “failing to show respect” to white women, and the same reflex that punishes Black athletes for kneeling silently during the national anthem. White supremacy’s DNA insists: “If we suffer, you must suffer with us—or else.”

No, HBCUs Are Not Celebrating Anyone’s Death, or did I hear of a mourning

Let’s be clear: no HBCU is celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. Students are not cheering. Professors are not applauding. Administrators are not posting memes. What is happening is something much more mundane—and much more offensive to the white supremacist imagination: indifference.

Intelligence means discernment. And many Black students are simply choosing not to grieve for a man who openly mocked their holidays, questioned their intellectual capacity, and framed their mere existence as a threat to “real America.” That refusal to perform empathy on command is being framed as rebellion—and punished with terroristic threats.

HBCUs Are Sacred Ground

As someone who attended an HBCU nearly 30 years ago and has taught at one for almost 18 years, I know what is at stake. HBCUs are not just schools. They are sanctuaries. They are spaces where first-generation students find their footing, where young people of every color learn Black history that most American textbooks still erase, where community means something beyond a hashtag.

HBCUs have produced Supreme Court justices, Pulitzer Prize winners, astronauts, CEOs, and U.S. Vice Presidents. These campuses educate students from every racial and religious background—because their mission has always been bigger than race. They are living proof that excellence can grow out of exclusion, and that brilliance can bloom even when the world doubts your worth.

To terrorize these institutions is to terrorize the future itself.

Why This Threat Pattern Matters

These threats did not erupt out of nowhere. They fit a familiar pattern of retaliatory racial targeting whenever white nationalist narratives feel “wounded.”

When Black communities mourn their dead—Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, George Floyd—white America demands that we “move on.” But when a white figure is killed, even one whose public brand thrived on belittling others, Black campuses are expected to suspend their own lives and perform sympathy.

And when they don’t, the punishment is swift: bomb threats, lockdowns, and armed police flooding dorms where teenagers are just trying to study for midterms. This isn’t about security. It’s about discipline. It’s about forcing Black students to comply emotionally with white supremacy’s script—or else.

We Will Not Be Silenced

We must reject the premise that Black safety is conditional on Black submission. Our students have a right to learn without fear, to grieve their own heroes without having to genuflect at the altars of those who mocked them. They have the right to ignore the death of a man who called Black women “unqualified” while they graduate at higher rates than any other demographic of women in America. They have the right to exist without being drafted into someone else’s mourning ritual.

So let’s name this moment plainly: these threats are not random. They are backlash. They are the howling of a system enraged that its grief was not centered. And they are proof that the struggle against white supremacy is not just about laws and policies—it is about the emotional hierarchies that still shape American life.

Our Resolve Must Be Greater Than Their Fear

This is not the first time HBCUs have faced threats, and it will not be the last. But our response must be unwavering. Law enforcement must investigate these threats as domestic terrorism, not as juvenile pranks. State and federal governments must invest in campus security without criminalizing students. And the media must cover these incidents with the same urgency they grant to predominantly white campuses.

Because this is bigger than Charlie Kirk. This is about the safety and dignity of every student who steps onto an HBCU campus believing they belong. And they do. HBCUs are America at its most hopeful. We will not let fear erase that.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Edmond W. Davis is a Social Historian, Speaker, Collegiate Professor, International Journalist, and former Director of the Derek Olivier Research Institute. He is an expert on various historical and emotional intelligence topics. He’s globally recognized for his research on the Tuskegee Airmen and Airwomen. He’s the Founder and Executive Director of America’s first & only National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest. Justice Hampton is a native of Mississippi and a former research assistant at the Derek Olivier Research Institute (DORI) at Arkansas Baptist College.

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