A Message from President Dr. E. LaBrent Chrite to the B-CU Community In Response to Social Injustice
Dear B-CU Community:
For many Americans, and for Black Americans in particular, the very soul of the nation seems in peril at the moment.
The horrific murder of George Floyd, captured in all its public, brutal clarity, serves as a stark reminder of the divergences between the highest ideals of our society as posited by our founders and the stark, 400-year reality for black, brown and native Americans. It is also a reminder of the fragility of the very lives of black people, including the life of Breonna Taylor, when intertwined with the nation’s criminal justice system. It begs the question: Why is this still happening?
At the same time, we reel from the disproportionate impacts on our community of COVID-19. The higher percentage of death and sickness is overwhelming. The accompanying, record-setting unemployment and economic hardship serve as a painful reminder of just some of the profound and enduring inequities in our society.
There is a great deal of pain. The protests around the country are manifestations of a cumulative national despair. There is a well-earned weariness here – our community and those who support it have a right to be tired, frustrated and angry. At the same time, the protests reflect a determination to make positive change, no matter the fatigue. As our esteemed founder, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, teaches us, we must be resilient. We must be energetic in not accepting the status quo, and in not letting it deprive us of our future. We can define society up.
And with those protests, we condemn the violence and looting of the few and celebrate the voice of the many. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. We are also watchful of the reaction of authorities and our leaders—who themselves should be held to the same high standard.
We are reminded that great institutions like B-CU, born of trauma, poverty and racism, are very much on the front lines of enabling America to fulfill its highest aims and aspirations. B-CU and other HBCUs serve as both the mirror to and the conscience of the American ideal. The role our institutions assume in serving and healing America—and the role our amazing students will assume as future leaders—has never been more critical or evident.
At B-CU, we serve students by intentionally exposing them to ideas and experiences that will enable them to discern between what is right and what is easy, and to recognize that with the education they receive, comes a responsibility to a greater good. B-CU fulfills its mission, in part, by bridging the gap between talent and ability, and access and opportunity. We serve this nation through harnessing the inextricable linkages – the shared existence – that many of us hold with the communities in which our institutions were born. For B-CU, that happens to be the former city dump, Hell’s Hole, which was the only land available to our founder. Through determination, faith and a legacy of love she transformed it into our beautiful, enduring university campus.
In the midst of our collective national trauma, B-CU will continue to live the ideals of its founder. We will unconditionally love and support our students and one another. We will do what we have always done – we will rise, support one another and we will affirm the very best of who we are and have always been as a community.
E. LaBrent Chrite, Ph.D.
B-CU President