DSU was one of more than a dozen HBCUs to receive a bomb threat Monday
Delaware State University President Tony Allen called a Monday bomb threat — one of more than a dozen at Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the country — “a clear effort to confuse, intimidate and bully our students, staff and faculty.”
“We are safe, for which I am incredibly thankful, but the attempt to disrupt targeted our community because of who we serve and the mission we fulfill,” Allen said in a statement. “The impetus for such a threat cannot be ascribed to anything other than the most primitive form of racism, a form which is neither new nor unique in this country.
The school got the call about 5:15 a.m. By 12:49 p.m., University Police and local, state and federal law enforcement officials with K-9 units had swept the campus and given an all clear.
Tony Allen
Also receiving bomb threats Monday were Coppin State University, Morgan State University, Howard University, Bowie State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alcorn State University, Tougaloo College, Kentucky State University, Fort Valley State University, Xavier University, Spellman College, Edwin Waters University and the University of the District of Columbia.
It was the second round of bomb threats in January, Allen pointed out. On Jan. 4, eight HBCUs had bomb threats.
Howard had three in January.
Monday’s round of calls came the day before Black History Month was to begin.
“Today’s bully does not understand that their perspective is antiquated and warped, that it serves less to achieve its aim than to lower their own fortunes, sinking them into the pathetic mire where human depravity dwells,” Allen said. “I hesitate even to bother guessing at whether they hate all people of color, fear a world in which BIPOC (Black and Indigenous people of color) have seats at the table, worry about their own marginalization, or even weep over travails such as poverty, unemployment, violence in their neighborhoods, educational and health care disempowerment, or political disenfranchisement.
“Regardless, here is what I say to these bullies, these fearmongers of our day: ‘We shall not be moved.’”
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling on Tuesday called on those in the United Methodist Church’s Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences to pray for the students and faculty at the universities.
“United Methodists stand in solidarity with historically Black colleges and lament the violence and hate that threatens them,” Easterling said in a statement. “We also recognize that these threats can traumatize and re-traumatize people and that the trauma can have a profound effect on their lives. We encourage people to care for not only their physical safety, but also their mental health as well.”
Allen said Historically Black Colleges and Universities were built on a common rejection.
“In our attempt to find a place of usefulness and honor in the world, we opened doors,” he said.
Those doors have welcomed Black men and women, underserved groups in rural and urban communities regardless of their color, children of undocumented workers and more, he said.
“We shall not be moved from standing sentry beside that open door,” Allen said. “Nor shall we be confused, intimidated, or bullied into believing anything other than what we are — Americans, learners, teachers, builders — useful and honorable people ready to soar.”
