Less than two weeks before the nation was to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama, the Association of Black Culture Centers Annual Conference examined what it means to be “Black in the age of Obama.”
Whether the age of Obama and the idea of a post-racial America draws to a close after Nov. 6 or continues until 2016, Black culture center directors say one of their biggest challenges is harnessing the energy of Black students on their campuses.
“There’s a lot of apathy as it relates to being Black or African-American at our colleges and universities,” said Tracy Adams-Peters, director of Inclusive Excellence at the University of Denver’s Center of Multicultural Excellence.
The movement that gave birth to Black culture centers hasn’t been able to sustain the same level of engagement over the years, Adams-Peters said. “We are all at risk of losing our Black culture center identity and becoming multicultural centers that kind of wash away the importance of being Black or African-American.”
The ABCC held its 22nd annual conference last week at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and chose as its theme, “Culture, Concerns and Contradictions: Being Black in the Age of Obama.” Over four days, center directors, administrators, students and faculty from around the country addressed that sobering theme and the inherent contradictions that confront culture centers. Renowned public intellectual Michael Eric Dyson gave one of several keynote addresses.
As it witnesses shifting attitudes about racial and cultural identities, the ABCC has begun to think more in practical terms of what it can do to benefit the university in areas such as student retention, said ABCC Executive Director Fred Lee Hord. “What we have found is that the students we are teaching [today] are different students than when this organization started in the ’80s.” The association now must find “students who are clear about the potential benefits” of culture centers, he said.
Hord, professor and chair of Black Studies at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., founded the ABCC in 1987 when he was director of the Center for Black Culture and Research at West Virginia University. The ABBC, headquartered at Knox, includes more than 700 members and affiliates in all 50 states, the Caribbean and West Africa.
