The African Union’s new $50 million Africa Think Tank Platform, funded by the World Bank, faces a binding constraint: a shortage of analysts trained in African-centred frameworks. HBCU Politics argues that HBCU policy schools at Southern, Clark Atlanta, Jackson State, and Texas Southern already form a latent training network. Organized as a consortium and capitalized by alumni foundations, they could supply the pipeline Africa’s policy institutions require, as Lincoln University once did for Nkrumah and Azikiwe. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2026
Curtis Flowers’ Wrongful Conviction and Death Are Another Reminder of the Need for an HBCU Law School in Mississippi
Curtis Flowers died on October 7, 2026, at 56, after Mississippi held him nearly 23 years for a crime it could never prove and paid him a capped $500,000 for his trouble. HBCU Politics argues that a wrong produced by institutions demands an institutional remedy: the Curtis Flowers School of Law, jointly owned by Jackson State, Alcorn State, and Mississippi Valley State; a permanent $10 million annual appropriation; and an HBCU Institutions of Higher Learning system with its own board. Anything less is appeasement, not restitution. Continue reading
The Empty Chair: African American Institutions and the Multilateral Vacancy
The U.S. withdrawal from 31 UN entities, including the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent and the Economic Commission for Africa, exposes a long-standing weakness: African America has reached the multilateral system only through Washington. HBCU Politics argues that the vacancy is an opening. HBCU alumni foundations, private HBCUs, and Black-owned banks and credit unions can build their own international standing through ECOSOC consultative status, a standing Permanent Forum delegation, ECA research partnerships, and talent pipelines into Africa Core institutions, with the Second International Decade for People of African Descent providing a runway through 2034. Continue reading
