Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. — Shirley Chisholm

A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight

In the 2025 KIDS COUNT Data Book released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an unsettling pattern emerges. The overwhelming majority of states with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) rank in the bottom half of all states for overall child well-being. Mississippi (48th), Louisiana (49th), Alabama (43rd), and several others with deep HBCU legacies consistently fall into the lowest quartile.

Yet amid these rankings is an often overlooked truth: HBCU alumni—numbering in the millions—represent one of the most potent, underutilized coalitions capable of transforming child well-being outcomes across the African American community. This power lies not only in their professional success but also in their institutional loyalty, cultural knowledge, and untapped political capital. The challenge is not merely to give back to their alma maters, but to give back through them—to reshape the ecosystems that surround and shape Black children’s lives.

HBCUs as Anchors in Fragile Ecosystems

HBCUs are more than campuses—they are anchor institutions in communities often plagued by systemic neglect. These institutions already act as economic engines and cultural beacons, but their alumni must now help extend their reach to address pressing child welfare concerns such as poverty, housing insecurity, health disparities, and educational inequity.

It is not coincidence that many of the worst-ranked states for child well-being also have HBCUs. This signals an opportunity for HBCU alumni to leverage their knowledge of these environments and the trust they’ve built within them to coordinate comprehensive responses that elevate the quality of life for African American children.

Political Capital: From Alumni Clout to Civic Strategy

Political capital is currency. And HBCU alumni—many of whom hold local, state, and national offices, or lead in education, law, media, business, and healthcare—have more of it than they may realize. However, political capital is only useful when strategically deployed.

A. Supporting Child-Focused Public Policy

HBCU alumni must unite around a shared legislative agenda that centers Black child well-being. This includes:

• Expanding access to early childhood education and wraparound services.
• Advocating for school funding formulas that correct racial disparities.
• Demanding Medicaid expansion in states that have refused it.
• Enforcing environmental justice protections to reduce childhood asthma and lead exposure in Black communities.

This type of advocacy can occur directly through alumni associations endorsing legislation or indirectly by empowering alumni to run for local school boards, county commissions, and state legislatures where resource allocation is decided.

B. Creating a PAC for Black Child Well-Being

Imagine a national Political Action Committee (PAC) that pooled HBCU alumni donations to support candidates and legislation aimed at eradicating child poverty, increasing access to mental health care, and improving Black maternal outcomes. Such a PAC could give voice to children too young to vote, but deeply affected by policy.

HBCU alumni must stop treating political capital as a symbolic badge and start treating it as a strategic tool. Policy must be shaped with the same intensity and coordination as Homecoming celebrations.

Non-Profit Infrastructure: From Giving Back to Building Forward

The non-profit sector has historically served as a Band-Aid for systems that fail Black children, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. It can become a surgical tool for transformation—if HBCU alumni stop donating blindly and begin organizing boldly.

A. Build Alumni-Led Non-Profits Centered on Children

Rather than simply supporting large, non-Black-led organizations with ambiguous missions, HBCU alumni can:

• Create 501(c)(3) organizations that focus explicitly on improving child well-being metrics in communities where HBCUs reside.
• Fund grassroots efforts that address hunger, safe housing, tutoring, and trauma support.
• Collaborate across HBCUs to share best practices and develop scalable models.

These organizations can act as partners to their alma maters, using the campus as a launchpad for services and leveraging university research to target interventions.

B. Transform Alumni Chapters into Civic Units

Every HBCU has dozens of alumni chapters nationwide, many of which already volunteer in schools and donate scholarships. But imagine if:

• Every alumni chapter “adopted” a school or foster care network.
• Chapters tracked legislation affecting child welfare and organized constituent calls and visits to elected officials.
• They hosted quarterly “policy and pancakes” briefings for parents and caregivers.

This reorientation from social and symbolic engagement to strategic and systemic change is how HBCU alumni shift from nostalgia to nation-building.

Strategic Giving: Moving Beyond Scholarships

Scholarships are critical, but they are often too little, too late. By the time many students reach college, they have survived a K–12 gauntlet of under-resourced schools, health inequities, and community trauma.

It’s time to recalibrate HBCU alumni giving with a long-term lens:

• Endow early intervention centers on HBCU campuses that provide parenting support, therapy, and academic preparation for local children.
• Fund Black-led early childhood programs that promote literacy, STEM exposure, and cultural pride beginning at age three.
• Create pooled funds that alumni donate to annually to support long-term outcomes like reducing juvenile incarceration rates and increasing high school graduation.

By giving earlier in a child’s life, the return on investment—educationally, economically, and emotionally—is far greater.

Mobilizing the Power of HBCU Students and Faculty

Alumni cannot do it alone. HBCU students and faculty are intellectual engines that should be mobilized as co-laborers in this work. This includes:

• Establishing Child Well-Being Innovation Labs that allow students to develop tech, policy, and community service solutions for child-related challenges.
• Funding research centers that disaggregate data on Black children by region, class, and age to guide more tailored interventions.
• Partnering with departments of education, social work, public health, and political science to incubate interdisciplinary solutions.

This builds a pipeline of future HBCU alumni who are not only aware of the problem, but trained to fix it.

The Moral Imperative and Strategic Urgency

We cannot wait for permission. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And injustice against Black children—whether in underfunded schools or overcrowded shelters—endangers not just their futures, but ours. The strength of African American institutions depends on the strength of the African American child.

Alumni of HBCUs are uniquely positioned to close the gap between what is and what must be. We carry the dual burden and blessing of historical consciousness and cultural credibility. When we fail to act, we leave our children vulnerable to systems that were never built to nurture them. But when we act—boldly, strategically, and collectively—we become the systems that raise them.

The Next Chapter Is Ours to Write

The problem of child well-being in African America is not one of awareness, but of alignment. HBCU alumni are not short on resources, ideas, or influence—we are short on infrastructure and intention. We must treat this fight with the same urgency we give to preserving HBCU traditions and the same strategy we give to building HBCU endowments.

This is our moment to not just be proud graduates of HBCUs, but to become fierce guardians of Black childhood.

Let our legacy not be measured only in degrees earned, but in futures secured.

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Suggested Call to Action:

📌 Form a coalition of HBCU alumni associations to create a national strategy on improving Black child well-being. Publish a public-facing report on political priorities, nonprofit coordination, and state-by-state action steps before the 2026 midterms.