HBCU bomb threats are a painful reminder of past anti-Black violence, students say
On the first day of Black History Month, Nylah Tolliver's schedule at Xavier University included three classes followed by dance team practice in the afternoon.
Her day was upended before it began. She woke up Feb. 1 to an email alert saying the school had received a bomb threat earlier in the day. A bomb wasn't found on campus, but the threat led to a reshuffling of classes.
Disappointed, but not surprised, Tolliver instead spent the first day of February lamenting "history repeating itself," she told Paste BN.
"It was like, ‘Wow, like of course this is happening again and it’s on the start on Black History Month.' ... Us knowing about history, we knew it wasn’t coincidental."
Xavier in Louisiana was one of more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities nationwide to receive a bomb threat on Feb. 1. FBI investigators have identified a handful of possible suspects, juveniles scattered across the country, who have raised serious concerns among authorities, a person familiar with the matter who is not authorized to comment publicly told Paste BN.
The threats, the FBI said, are being investigated as hate crimes and racially motivated violent extremism. In one of the cases, a caller claimed to be affiliated with a neo-Nazi group, Daytona Beach police Chief Jakari Young said.
Paste BN found more than two dozen HBCUs in 12 states and Washington, D.C., have received bomb threats in 2022 so far.
David Terry, professor of history at Morgan State University, one of the HBCUs to receive a bomb threat on Feb. 1, said threats of violence have been used throughout U.S. history to divide Americans along racial lines.
This year's bomb threats are "a broader statement of anti-Black backlash to the period of racial reckoning that we have supposedly been undertaking the last two years or so," Terry said. "This message is about letting allies, letting those who would stand with Black people, understand the violence and the threat of maintaining that proximity."
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'From the same playbook' of past violence
The bomb threats fit into the broader history of anti-Black violence in America, Terry said. The almost-nationwide scope of the threats sets them apart from previous threats of violence, he added.
It's clear the perpetrators "understand the historical narrative" their bomb threats fit into, Terry said.
"Because they’re pulling from the same playbook, they’re pulling from these same sorts of ways in which their antecedents attacked Black institutions as a way to force this sort of confrontation over the idea of race," he said.
Taylor St. Vilus is another HBCU student who woke up to news of a bomb threat. Instead of starting her day at the gym, the Southern University and A&M sophomore spent the morning in her dorm – under lockdown.
St. Vilus said she understood why the perpetrators targeted Black students at HBCUs instead of state flagship universities that might have housed more Black students overall.
“It’s a scare tactic to make us feel uncomfortable in a space that is designed for us to thrive and feel comfortable in," St. Vilus said.
St. Vilus said this year's bomb threats made her think about other instances in American history when majority-minority spaces faced violence, such as 1921's Tulsa Race Massacre.
Tolliver, the Xavier student, said Feb. 1's bomb threat made her think about the 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four young girls were killed and more than 20 others injured.
“It reminded me of that because those people were just going to church, and they couldn’t even do that in peace," said Tolliver, a freshman. "And here we are in 2022, trying to further our education to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, health care professionals, we basically just want to be successful and create a future for ourselves and we can’t even do that without having a bomb threat.”
Amari Clark, a junior at Morgan State University, said the bomb threats made her experience racist violence in way her generation has mostly only read about in history books.
“College students, especially at my age, are just for the first time seeing an abundance of racism come to the forefront," Clark said. "With everything that happened the summer of 2020, and now this, it’s just like, we’re no longer reading about it, we’re no longer hearing about it, we’re experiencing it, and I think for my generation, people my age, it’s overwhelming, it’s a lot to think about, it’s a lot to deal with."
Who will 'step in and protect Black citizenship, Black safety?'
Spelman College, a historically Black women's college in Atlanta, has responded to three bomb threats so far in 2022, according to the school's Twitter. No devices were found following thorough campus sweeps.
Sophia Parker, who is a Spelman fellow for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that defends voting rights, said she thinks there's been "a lack of action taken on behalf of Black Americans" when threats are made against them.
Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, said this year's bomb threats were a "wake-up call" that civil rights are still under attack from white supremacy in the U.S., just like they were in the 1950s and 60s.
Given the threats' geographic scope and level of disruption to learning, Kimbrough said young Americans of color should think about how they want to resist future attempts to limit their rights and make them feel afraid. Dillard did not receive a bomb threat on Feb. 1, but Kimbrough was part of a roundtable discussion about the threats that included multiple HBCU presidents and a Department of Education official. The discussion was hosted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Terry said threats made against minority groups have always been a key motivating force for elected officials who say they stand for civil rights.
"The classic sort of strategy, particularly in the 1960s era of the civil rights movement, was to force these confrontations of 'one side or the other,'" Terry said. "You know, will the federal government step in and do its job to protect American freedoms? Will state governments, will city governments step in and protect Black citizenship, Black safety?"
Members of Congress have urged law enforcement to be more transparent regarding their investigations into the threats. The House Judiciary Committee and Congressional Black Caucus asked in a Feb. 3 letter that the FBI and Department of Justice provide them with additional information on their findings from their investigations.
"The whole of government must be directed at bringing the perpetrators of these threats to justice without delay," the letter said.
While the investigations continue, students and faculty are back on campus.
Parker and her fellow Spelman students plan to reach out to elected officials this month. The threats Spelman and other HBCUs faced were, in part, caused by pushes to ban discussions about racism from classrooms, she said.
“A lot of my peers who aren’t even that politically involved, at least not as much as I am, are talking about wanting to get involved, just like writing letters to our senators, our representatives, people who are pushing these bills," said Parker, who said she worked on the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign as a Democratic National Committee fellow.
When Terry returned to teach classes at Morgan State following the bomb threats, he said his teenage daughter feared for his safety.
“She looked at me and she said ‘just be careful,'" he said.
Contributing: Kevin Johnson, Associated Press