By Reginald Stuart
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Scores of presidents of historically Black colleges across the country, including Dr. Glenda Glover, retired president of Tennessee State University (TSU), have joined a growing chorus of leading educators expressing their appreciation to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their work on be-half of the institutions, oft-times bypassed year-after-year by federal funding agencies and despite luke-warm support from conservative politicians.
In a letter to the two national political leaders cheering Biden, who stunned the nation late last month by declaring he was stepping down from his bid for re-election and passing his torch to Vice President Harris, the institution presidents said “no administration has done more for Historically Black Colleges and Universities than the Biden-Harris administration.
“Delivering more than $17 billion in investment to the HBCU community in less than three and a half-years is unprecedented,” the letter said, touting a list of accomplishments.
The list includes the American Rescue Plan for emergency grants to students, campus operations, staffing and learning during the corona virus pandemic, approving billions of dollars in student debt cancellation for more than 4.5 million students. That decision has been blocked by a federal district court for region eight.
“You have forever changed the course of our outstanding institutions, Mr. President, said the letter from the college presidents, signed by Dr. Tony Allen, chairman of President Biden’s board of advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and president of Delaware State University. It was also signed by Glover, vice chair of President Biden’s HBCU advisory board.
In closing comments in their letter to Biden the academic leaders said, “We will continue to be prepared to heed your selfless, courageous, democratic call and we will work over the next several months to carry the work of your presidency forward on behalf of our country and all the institutions—including HBCUs—that have adhered to the nation’s highest pursuit—a more perfect nation…..We are ever, thankful for your leadership and are resolute in our continued pursuits “we shall not be moved.”
President Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential contest and prompt endorsement of Vice President Harris was like an earthquake on the political landscape of the country. Biden, who became 81 years of age this year, was unable to shake the ‘too old’ to serve label thrust upon him by Trump, now 78, as the presidential campaign season picked up steam.
Biden, who was set for battling former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate who had dumped his Vice President Mike Pence in a dispute over 2020 election results that voted Trump out and Biden-Harris in. Trump, who has pledged to undo everything Biden has done as president and was planning for his next term. A freshman U.S. Senator from Ohio, entrepreneur JD Vance, 53, is a former Trump supporter who says he has had a change of heart.
With the public closely divided on the standing of both men, Trump, who had barely missed an attempted assassin’s bullet days earlier at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, looked fit-as-a-fiddle last month after his debate with President Biden, who appeared dazed at-times and was at a loss for words, during their debate. In the television and heard on radio broadcast, Trump was credited by observers as having delivered his messages, successfully, despite being laced with disrespectful bully language and tightly threaded with false accusations about his rivals — Biden and Harris.
Now, Trump, who has re-branded his efforts as that of mega-Republicans, is unclear who he will face for the fall election. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris, a Howard University graduate, is rapidly on a search for a VP candidate.
Harris, 59, a former U.S. Senator representing California and federal prosecutor, immediately accepted the campaign torch from Biden, who had been intensely grooming her to take his place, if necessary, or run for office as president to succeed him. In public statements since the abrupt shift in political events, Harris has welcomed the opportunity to debate Trump.
As for turning on a dime, the Democratic Party reported the day after Biden’s surprise announcement to step down, more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions for Harris was received during a ‘zoom’ phone call among Democratic women.
The day after Biden’s announcement, a group of Black men separately reported raising $1.3 million for the new Harris led campaign.
Separately, there were several reports from verifiable election services that thousands of new voters had registered to vote in the fall 2024 elections.
With days remaining before the Democratic Party national convention to be held in Chicago, the Vice President’s choice of a running mate in eminent.