Featured Image via Howard University homecoming weekend in October 2019.Andre D. Wagner for The New York Times
Each fall, a sacred migration unfolds. Black families pack their bags, college sweethearts reunite, DJs dust off Frankie Beverly, and grills fire up across campus yards from Howard to Hampton, Tuskegee to Texas Southern. It’s homecoming season—a cherished rite rooted in the soil of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
But beyond the tailgates and step shows lie a deeper truth: homecoming isn’t just a party. It’s a ritual of resistance. A declaration of belonging. A long-standing practice of creating safety, joy and kinship in a country that too often denies Black people all three.
A Tradition Born of Necessity
For generations, Black assemblies were a dangerous act. Under Jim Crow, white vigilantes treated Black joy as a provocation. Barbecues were interrupted. Churches were bombed. Any gathering not centered on labor or servitude was seen as a threat. And yet, Black folks gathered anyway: in juke joints, on porches, and most defiantly, on the campuses of HBCUs.
Founded out of necessity and brilliance, HBCUs were among the first places in America where Black people could pursue intellectual freedom on their own terms. They offered more than classrooms—they offered refuge. At these institutions, Black excellence was not the exception; it was the baseline. And homecoming became the annual pilgrimage that affirmed it all.
Families traveled across state lines to see their children crowned as kings and queens. Alumni returned with their babies in strollers and stories on their tongues. Communities showed up, not just to support the team, but to be reminded that even in the face of state-sanctioned exclusion, they had built something beautiful and it was still standing.
Safe Inside Our Schools
To this day, Black colleges remain one of the few places where Black joy doesn’t have to ask permission. But that doesn’t mean they have been untouched by violence or attempts to dismantle their power.
From the chronic underfunding of public HBCUs to the more recent political attacks on DEI programs and African American Studies, Black schools remain in the crosshairs of those who fear what happens when Black people organize, educate and imagine freely. After the public assassination of a white nationalist figure in September, threats of violence were lodged at multiple HBCUs across the country, enough to prompt lockdowns and spark fear among students and staff. The subtext was clear: even now, even here, our safe spaces are not sacred to them.
But as always, HBCUs responded with clarity and care.
Take Tennessee State University. When uninvited agitators appeared on campus in MAGA gear, attempting to provoke and parade as if entitled to space, students made it known: disrespect would not be tolerated. School leadership responded swiftly and unequivocally, reaffirming the campus as a safe zone for its students and warning those seeking chaos to stay away.
This moment, like many before it, made something plain: we are still the ones protecting our own.
The Joy That Holds Us Together
Amid the threats, the erasure, the neglect—we still show up. In sequins. In sweat. In remembrance. Because homecoming isn’t just a weekend. It’s a home destination.
It’s where the band doesn’t just play, it testifies. Where vendors sell T-shirts, and legacy. Where Black elders hold court on park benches, and children run free under canopies of sound and scent and laughter. It’s where the alumni tent and the Divine Nine plots become confessionals, job fairs, and revival spaces.
And in a world that tries to scatter us, homecoming is how we gather ourselves again.
We need these gatherings now more than ever—not just for celebration, but for sustenance. Because Black students are still fighting for housing, safety and respect on their campuses. Because our schools are still underfunded by the same states that praise their band performances on Saturdays. Because joy without justice is fragile, but joy in spite of injustice ignites action.
Holding the Line, Year After Year
When you step onto an HBCU yard during homecoming, you are stepping into something bigger than nostalgia, connecting with a lineage of survival and softness, of protest and pageantry, of a people who refuse to let go of each other, no matter what the world throws their way.
So to every school keeping the gates open and the beat steady—we see you. To every student, alum, and staff member working to make homecoming happen amid chaos—we thank you. And to anyone who ever wondered if Black joy can coexist with Black rage, the answer: it must.
Because while they threaten, we testify. While they defund, we dance. And while they try to keep us apart, we keep coming home.
Joshua Levi Perrin is a writer for Unerased | Black Women Speak.
