Rep. Watson Coleman Statement on Recent Bomb Threats Against Nation's HBCUs
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security released the following statement concerning recent bomb threats at over a dozen HBCUs around the country:
The bomb threats against Historically Black Colleges and Universities are domestic terrorism that must be investigated and understood as such. As we consider the security of our homeland, it is imperative that we clearly understand the potential peril to our country represented by the expanding threats against the historical institutions that have secured our futures.
During this Black History Month, we are especially mindful of the need to protect and preserve the sacred spaces in our country that are producing some of our best and brightest. HBCUs have disproportionately produced and are producing more African American four-year college graduates, doctors, lawyers, judges and STEM majors than any other institution in our history.
HBCUs are the institutions that trained up Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Nobel Prize winners Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Toni Morrison; Senator Raphael Warnock, Vice President Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Earl Graves, Sr., Gladys Knight, Althea Gibson and Jerry Rice to name only a few.
Though today there are 107 HBCU’s spread across 21 states (as well as D.C and the Virgin Islands), HBCU alumni and students enroll from across the country (including thousands from New Jersey) and from many nations around the world. These bomb threats are a direct threat to our national security. We must act quickly, decisively and collaboratively.