“Do you know how powerful you are?” That was a question Sean Combs (aka Diddy) asked six years ago to the 2014 graduating class at the historically black college (HBCU), Howard University. Combs gave a riveting 30-minute speech that inspired thousands of graduates to go on and “change the World.”
Detroit’s population is 84% black. This the largest percentage of African Americans of any city in the United States. Recently, State Representative Karen Whitsett presented the idea to President Trump of moving an HBCU to Detroit. I believe it not only appropriate but crucial for a Nation that continues to call on Detroit during World Wars and global pandemics to make an investment in Detroit’s future by harnessing the rich history of HBCUs to empower and educate a new generation of black leaders.
COVID-19 caused dual health and economic crises across every color, creed, gender and ethnicity in our Country. Due to generations of lip-service and disinvestment in the black community, however, African Americans will continue to bear the brunt of both. Health wise, early statistics from the CDC showed 40% of COVID-19 deaths to be among African Americans. The Detroit area also reported the 8th highest cumulative deaths per capita in the US with 4,197. Job wise, though black unemployment was at historic lows pre-COVID, the poverty level in Detroit was at multi-year low of a still whopping 33%! Blacks are over-represented among the working poor in low-wage, service sector occupations where there was already a lack of accessible jobs in the City of Detroit. As Michigan’s stay-at-home orders have been lifted, blacks face historic unemployment highs of almost 30% with even less means to survive as unemployment checks are scheduled to end later this summer.
While education is fundamental to our nation’s economic growth, national security, and the long-term path to prosperity for every American, mothers and fathers must feed children and pay rent now! We must focus on adult education which allows people to enhance their careers, by learning trades and skills that are in demand, while also being able to earn a living. Until much needed and long overdue infrastructure and childcare reforms are enacted by Congress, working adults who live in opportunity zones should be exempt from federal taxes to offset their costs of transportation and childcare. Businesses in opportunity zones who also hire adults from opportunity zones should be exempt from federal payroll taxes on those individuals in order to incentivize co-op/apprenticeship participation, on-the-job training and long-term direct hire opportunities.
Detroit has a deep historical significance to blacks yet Michigan’s only HBCU, Detroit’s Lewis School of Business (Lewis), founded in 1928, was closed in 2013. Lewis should qualify on its own as an HBCU under the Higher Education Act of 1965 but a well-funded and well-led extension from the likes of a prestigious Howard, Morehouse or Spelman University into Detroit onto the accessible and beautiful grounds of the recently shuttered Marygrove College could do at least four things:
1. Honor the rich legacy of the traditional undergraduate HBCU experience while averting the tragedy of another one of Detroit’s architectural marvels falling into blighted ruin.
2. Work in partnership with the City of Detroit and local private sector giants to offer both adult education with focus on basic literacy, numeracy, and essential inter-personal (soft) skills training and workforce development through Randolph for construction and skilled trades, Breithaupt for service and automotive and Golightly for advanced manufacturing and IT. 3. Emulate the successful Kettering co-op model so that adults on both the undergraduate and the workforce development tracks through this program emerge with relevant skillset and recent job experience.
4. Support a local economy eager for new business, a local government desperate for revenue and lower crime rates.
In that 2014 speech, Diddy told a story about how normal marathon trainings are 6 months, but he trained in 2 months, completed the marathon and raised $2 million for New York City public schools because the
timing was right. The need in Detroit post-COVID will be massive. The timing is right and a federally supported, mission focused HBCU could be a key to our recovery.
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