In The News: Historically black colleges work to help students amid virus

The Associated Press covered the challenges COVID-19 has presented to historically black colleges, and students. President Forrest Harris spoke with AP to discuss the resilience and legacy of HBCUs. See more of Dr. Harris’s contributions below and the entire article can be found here.

Forrest Harris is president of American Baptist College, a small liberal arts school in Nashville best known for educating U.S. Congressman John Lewis when he was helping plan the city’s lunch counter sit-ins. With a tiny endowment, the school relies heavily on tuition from its 100 students and is facing a “significant revenue loss” from COVID-19. Harris is confident the school will continue educating social justice leaders.

Harris is a graduate of Knoxville College, an HBCU that lost its accreditation and closed down for several years but is now accepting students through an online program and working toward the goal of restoring the campus.

“HBCUs are hard to die,” Harris said. “They have a resilient spirit and a tradition of educating African Americans in communities that are going to fight hard for them.”