By: Tulani K. Prince-Brackett

Every college or university has their own story but the one common thread that ties Historically Black Colleges and Universities together is music.

From the Fisk Jubilee Singers to the funky moves of Grambling Marching Band, music at an HBCU is more than just the necessary (or perhaps unnecessary) aid to studying or the latest CD for fraternities or sororities to step to. According to most people I have spoken to who have attended HBCU’s, the music of American-American people is a song of struggle and celebration. While watching an HBCU marching band is a big part of the HBCU experience, the choir has become the soundtrack of many collegiate careers.

Music signals a welcoming and bright beginning and a bittersweet end of the black college experience at Alabama A&M University.

One week before school officially starts at Alabama A&M; freshmen attend the mandatory 'Operation Jumpstart.' It is a time when they learn the history of the institution, and the ins and outs of the university. This includes learning the school anthem.

At the end of the week, there is a ceremony, containing the usual speeches (regarding college life), and students dressed in white holding candles. The celebration ends with everyone singing “Alma Mater,” the school anthem. It’s also the last thing sung at the end of graduation.

“Even though I’ve been in the choir since freshman year I never get tired of performing and learning, said Ashley Hendricks, a senior music major at Alabama A&M University, “I don’t think I’ll be able to sing “Alma Mater” when I graduate. I think it will be too emotional. I’m not leaving a school; the choir is like family.”

Like many students who leave home for the first time, the transition to independence can be a little scary. For many the songs brought a comforting familiarity to their lives between breaks and vacations.

Perhaps some believe this healthy respect for the past has been replaced with music praising the degradation of black people but not so,

“They hoop, they holler and get down...they brought memories of my church to my heart every time,” says Omari Kwame, a 2000 graduate of Dillard University, who added, “there’s a strong church background at black colleges.”

“Without the choir, I would think it (respect) would be lost. Most students attend African-American churches and usually bring their roots from home and it’s a part of self,” added Sharon Dill-Gibson, who attended Wilberforce University between 1984 and 1986.

 It is not just music but also the yearning for the cultural exposure that continue to draw students to HBCU’s today.

“There was music everywhere I went. I expected the music. Even if you weren’t a music major, you wanted to learn about black arts and the different genres we, as a people, have contributed to society,” said Stephanie Nolan, a Content manager for Motorola and a 1994 Spelman graduate. 

If you majored in music, in the pre and civil rights era, music was the core of the campuses. Students were not allowed to leave campus after a certain time or were told not to visit certain areas under any circumstances. In spite of the turbulent times, learning and fun remained a constant.

Anita Smith, a retired teacher, and 1954 graduate of Prairie View A&M College (now known as Prairie View A&M University), was a four-year member of the women’s choir and the college choir, who enjoyed any activity that involved the choir. She believes it is an expression and extension of the black family.

”I learned things that I had not been exposed to at home. Like learning the “Oratorical Elijah.” It is like the “Messiah.” “It was very comforting. Prairie View enhanced everything I knew.”

As with many other families, HBCU enrollment becomes a family tradition. Smith’s mother, Verona Tubbs, and all eight of Smith’s brothers and sisters attended Prairie View. Like Smith, her younger sister, Virginia Tubbs, a retired music teacher who received her undergraduate and masters in music, loved her time at Prairie View, even if it got too close for comfort at times.

“All of my instructors knew me and my parents because of my siblings. If I was not doing something right, they compared me to my sister. I wasn’t fond of that at all,” said Tubbs.

Tubbs can laugh at those memories now but still remains in awe when her earliest memory of the music department was how everyone knew when the college choir practiced. Tubbs described it as a ‘big deal’ because you saw students coming from every part of the campus only to merge into the music hall before dinner to practice.

“I hadn’t experienced being in a large setting like that before. I met more people with my interest. Music was my passion. It still is…You learn that music goes hand in hand with history, the styles, who wrote it, it’s a universal language.”

It seems as long as there is need for academic, spiritual, and social development at its best, there will be a need and want for the choir at historically black institutions.

BIO

Chicago native, Tulani K. Prince-Brackett began her career nearly a decade ago at Chicago State University’s radio station (WCSU - 610 AM) reporting mid-day news. There she received a B.A. in Speech Broadcasting. She is currently teaching for Chicago Public Schools and flexing her muscles creating an online radio station and working on her first novel, Love Takeover.