We are joined by the Emmy Award winning filmmaker, Stanley Nelson, whose latest documentary chronicles the history of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The HBCU tradition in the United States was born out of necessity, animated after the Civil War by the conviction that education would be the foundation upon which the success of Freedmen and Freedwomen would be built.
There are currently 101 HBCU schools, 20 fewer than in the 1930s. Its graduates include Black luminaries like WEB DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, Spike Lee, Althea Gibson, and Toni Morrison.
Mr. Nelson’s film is called “Tell Them We are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges & Universities.” The film speaks of the history, the legacy and the importance of HBCU’s to the Black community and to the whole of American Society.
