Pandemics of COVID-19 and racism: how HBCUs are coping

Komanduri S Murty; Tamara B Payne

doi:10.3934/publichealth.2021026

Pandemics of COVID-19 and racism: how HBCUs are coping

AIMS Public Health. 2021 Mar 31;8(2):333-351. doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2021026. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Komanduri S Murty¹, Tamara B Payne²

Affiliations

¹ Professor and Char, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, GA, USA.
² Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Counseling and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, GA, USA.

Abstract

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are currently facing unique challenges to deal with parallel pandemics of COVID-19 and Racism, given the population they serve (mostly African American) are at high risk of these unprecedented crises. HBCU leaders are adopting various strategies to respond to both the pandemics in order to protect their stakeholders. This paper addresses various models that HBCUs have adopted or planned to adopt to cope with these pandemics, gleaning the data from various secondary sources and selected first-hand interviews with HBCU administrators.

Keywords: African American; Breonna Taylor; COVID-19; George Floyd; HBCUs; pandemics; racism; social justice; vaccine.