White students at black colleges: a course of a different color
By Avis Thomas-Lester
The Washington Post
Just after noon on the Howard University yard, members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity broke into an impromptu step show, bobbing and chanting as they stomped in unison.
Chad Bishop watched from a distance. In his three years on the campus, he has become fully immersed in college life: student-body treasurer, sports announcer, newspaper board member, resident adviser in a dorm.
But Bishop, one of the few white students at this historically black university, said he has never felt quite comfortable enough to join a fraternity.
There have always been “white” students at “black” colleges. They just didn’t have the right to call themselves “white” or be uncomfortable surrounded by blacks.