2022 bomb threats:
In early 2022, particularly during Black History Month, more than 50 HBCUs across the country received coordinated bomb threats that caused widespread lockdowns, evacuations, and class cancellations. The coordinated bomb threats in 2022 were investigated by federal authorities as potential hate crimes and acts of violent extremism. Howard University was forced to evacuate and go on lockdown twice in the same month due to bomb threats.
2023 -- Edward Waters University: After a gunman was confronted by campus security, he left the HBCU and shot three people at a nearby store.
2024 -- Tuskegee University: Gunfire on the Alabama campus resulted in one death and 16 injuries.
March 2025 -- Southern University: The Baton Rouge campus was locked down following an on-campus shooting incident in a dorm.
Contributing factors:
-- Funding disparities and neglect have sometimes left HBCUs with fewer resources for campus security compared to non-HBCUs.
-- Vulnerability of "open-campus" layouts, which can increase the risk of crime spilling over from surrounding neighborhoods and force more frequent lockdowns.
During the days of the Civil Rights movement there were violent confrontations with law enforcement at
-- South Carolina State in 1968. There, the Orangeburg Massacre marked the first instance of police killing student protestors at an American university:
9 highway patrolmen and one city police officer opened fire on a crowd of African American students, killing three and injuring twenty-eight after they'd held a series of protests against racial segregation at a local bowling alley.
-- Jackson State in 1970 which led to two students killed and 12 students injured by police gunfire. A dormitory still bears the bullet marks fired on that day.
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