About this item
A richly reported account of the forces threatening America's historic black colleges and universities - and how diverse leaders nationwide are struggling to keep these institutions and black culture alive for future generations.American education is under siege, and few parts of the system are more threatened than black colleges and universities. Once hailed as national treasures, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) such as Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Howard University - the backbone of the nation's black middle class which have produced legends including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Oprah Winfrey - are in a fight for survival. The threats are numerous: Republican state legislators are determined to merge, consolidate, or shut down historically black colleges and universities; Ivy League institutions are poaching the best black high school students; President Obama's push for heightened performance standards, and cuts in loan funding from the U.
About the Author
Ron Stodghill is an award-winning journalist whose career spans nearly two decades and includes roles as a staff writer for the New York Times, Midwest bureau chief for Time, Washington correspondent for Business Week, and editor-in-chief of Savoy magazine. Educated at the University of Missouri, Queens University of Charlotte, and Harvard University, where he studied as a Nieman Fellow, Stodghill is the author of Redbone: Money, Malice and Murder in Atlanta (HarperCollins/Amistad) , a critically-praised work of literary non-fiction published in 2007. He is also co-author of No Free Ride: From the Mean Streets to the Mainstream, former U.S. Congressman and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume's best-selling memoir (Ballantine Books, 1996) . An assistant professor at Johnson C. Smith University, Stodghill resides with his wife and three sons in Charlotte, N.C. Stodghill's latest work, Where Everybody Looks Like Me, a work of reportage and commentary about the crisis facing America's historically black colleges (HarperCollins/Amistad) , will be released September 2015.
