HBCUs or Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been instrumental in the Black community for generations; educating many prominent Black leaders throughout history.
Despite their impact, not all Black youth are able to be exposed to these institutions, so much so that when college application season rolls around – these schools aren’t even on many students their radar.
In 2022 the HBCYouth Foundation Inc. moved to change that, leading to the creation of Camp HBCYouth, a summer-day camp for elementary age children hosted on HBCU campuses around the nation.
According to their website, “Camp HBCYouth is the flagship summer program of the HBCYouth Foundation, Inc., designed to reflect the spirit, values, and excellence of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). “
At this camp, children participate in arts and crafts, music programs, daily academic enrichment, and are even provided with healthy breakfasts, lunches and snacks.
In just 3 years, the program has had many achievements including serving 40,000 meals, serving over 600 kids, and employing over 40 students.
Most recently, HBCYouth announced their partnership with the #1HBCU according to the U.S. News Report: Spelman College.
Located in Atlanta, Spelman College is a liberal arts HBCU that has been educating Black women since 1881.
This summer, Spelman will open its doors to young girls part of Camp HBCYouth from June 8 to July 11. This is the first time that the organization has curated an all-girls summer camp experience.
In a caption posted to Instagram, the organization celebrated this groundbreaking partnership writing, “From day one, these girls are stepping into sisterhood and soaking up the legacy around them. It’s more than summer fun, it’s an early start on the HBCU journey.”
Spelman joins it’s male counterpart Morehouse College, as well as Tennessee State University, Clark Atlanta University, and Morgan State University as one of the hubs of the HBCYouth camp. Though most of this year’s camp sessions are already over there are applications still open on their website and you can register here.
Towards the end of April, DOGE, headed by Elon Musk, cut over $400 million in Americorp grant funding.
Americorp program is a federally funded National Service initiative that employed hundreds of thousands of American across the county.
Americorp was created by President Bill Clinton in 1993 as a national service program to improve communities and assist those who served financially through a small stipend and educationally through an educational award.
The Americorp program is open to Americans over the age of 17 with a high school degree and helps guide its young people with their next steps, giving them career development and higher education funding for an education award.
The $400 million cut caused the Americorp programming to halt operations almost immediately.
In 2025, the program boasted around 200,000 members.
However, the DOGE cuts left many of them scrambling to take the next steps.
On Sunday, April 27th at 6:04pm, Americorp members participating in an Atlanta program, One World Link, received an email from the One World Link’s executive director, Ade Oguntoye, sharing that
“We have been instructed to pause AmeriCorps programming with immediate effect. This means members and staff can no longer serve as AmeriCorps members or staff.”
Caleb Keith was one of those cuts.
A recent Morehouse Graduate, class of 2022, he was completing his service at One World Link’s partner program the Ke’nekt Cooperative, the Ke’nekt Cooperative is a self- proclaimed black-liberated third space that hosts community programming, finances local businesses, and provides technical services near West End in Atlanta, GA.
His work helped to support small black business owners and community members in the face of rapid development around the existing community.
His service at the Ke’nekt Cooperative was connected with One World Link’s larger mission to provide support and contribute to the improved economic status of economically disinvested people throughout Georgia.
“It’s really disheartening and random to wipe out programs that are made to help everyday people,” Keith said.
Similarly, on May 29th, Job Corps received a gut due to a “pause of operations” announced by the Department of Labor for all contractor-operated Job Corps centers.
Young adults who lived in Job Corps career training center faced unexpected homelessness as the Department of Labor cut contracts across the nation.
Graduates face a tougher job market this year, with unemployment rates up 1.2% from last year.
“It’s really not fair expecting to have an experience only for it to end for essentially no reason. It hurts a lot of people.” Keith said.
Fortunately, Caleb was able to continue employment with the Ke’nekt outside of the Americorp program; however, not all Americorp members have the same opportunity.
Organizations like the America’s Service Commissions are working to support terminated and demobilized members with grants, and lawsuits have been filed regarding the funding cut in over two dozen states.
However, former members around the country are all working to find their next steps, as are the communities they serve.
Long-time corporate sponsors are declining to invest in Pride festivals across the country.
It’s speculated that this corporate exodus is primarily due to Donald Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives and the targeting of public opponents.
With over 30 years of committed support, companies like Anheuser-Busch (a well-known figure in the beer industry most aligned with supporting veterans) declined to sponsor their hometown of St. Louis, Missouri’s Pride Parade this year, a $150,000 funding loss compared to last year.
In D.C., the mayor’s office received some backlash over its initial closure of a historic meeting spot for this year’s “Freedom to be visible” Pride Festival.
After backlash, Dupont Circle, which gained its reputation in the 1970s as a gay-friendly spot for Pride, was reopened for the event.
While DC is celebrating the city’s 50th anniversary of Pride celebrations, members and allies of the LGBTQ community searched for ways to honor the legacy of the very first Pride March, which took place on June 28th, 1970, on the one-year anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising.
Reeling from the aftermath of Donald Trump’s expansion of executive power, this month has significantly highlighted the quick and direct impact of his efforts on the LGBTQ community.
Many cities are using the June Pride parades as symbols of rebellion, power, and protest. For Example,
NYC’s Rise Up: Pride in Protest or San Francisco’s Queer Joy is Resistance 2025 Pride Parade Theme.
Still, the political climate in cities like San Francisco creates challenges during Pride Month.
Ahead of the June 28th SoSF block party, founder of the event company Fake and Gay DJ Adam Kraft and drag artist Nicki Jizz have pulled out of the festival due to the organizers’ stance on the genocide taking place in Palestine.
These exits follow Kehlani dropping out of headlining for reasons yet to be confirmed but in considerable speculation due to SoSF’s statement against the Oakland singer’s stance with Palestine.
In part, San Francisco also operates within a deficit compared to Pride 2024 after major corporate pull-outs.
With community aid and consciously practicing themes of queer joy as resistance, June continues to be a time of celebrating identity. It is also a reminder of the rich history of human rights advocacy. In the words of Marsha P. Johnson, “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
David Hogg, Democratic National Committee Vice President, has promised a multi-million dollar campaign donation toward progressive candidates in the 2026 congressional elections. Faced with low approval numbers, is the Democratic party “failing to meet the moment”
The Democratic Party of the United States suffered a huge loss in the 2024 national and state elections.
Losing both houses in Congress and the presidential election, many have speculated about the potential cause of these sweeping defeats for Democrats.
However, criticism of the Democratic Party extends beyond their election losses, with current DNC leader David Hogg calling for progressives to challenge current Democratic congressional seats.
Another sign that the party seems to be struggling with messaging as they are coming up on the serious political moment of the 2026 congressional elections.
The Democratic members in Congress have met the Trump campaign with varying degrees of caution, concern, and, at times, forceful pushback against the Trump administration’s various affronts to federal and state systems.
In just a few weeks, the Trump administration has crashed stock prices and raised the cost of everyday items through an international tariff war.
In addition to weakening political/ security relations through their forceful tariffs policies, the Trump administration has also managed to have three security breach scandals in just the month of April. That is only to name a few of the headlines coming out of the Trump administrations first 100 days.
CORY BOOKER SETS THE RECORD FOR LONGEST SENATE FLOOR SPEECH IN 25 HOUR ADDRESS AGAINST TRUMP ADMINSTRATION POLICIES
Despite the many debacles coming from the Trump Adminstration in the last three months, the Democratic party can not seem to gain political favor.
In fact, the Democratic party is polling worse than they were after Trump’s election in 2016 amongst young voters according to the latest Harvard Youth polls.
This is a contiuantion of a concerning trend of lack of voter turn out amongst young people and overall dissastissfaction in the politcal landscape both in general and specifically with the Democratic party.
In addition the youth polled expressed distrust with both the current administration and the federal system in general.
The poll also showcased Trumps approval amongst young black americans continues to outpace his 2016 election. While this limited poll paints a grim picture for Democrat success in the upcoming election cycle, leadership in the Democraitc party are also expressing a need for a change.
Notably, Democratic National Committee Vice President David Hogg, has publicly promised to devote 20 million dollars in collaboration with his political action committee or PAC Leaders We Deserve in support of progressive candidates challenging democratic congressional seats in the 2026 elections.
This may not sound like a radical idea, but the Democratic National Committee encourages unity amongst the democratic party and though they claim to avoid bias towards any candidate, the DNC has historically been accused of favoring incumbents in congressional elections.
Leaders We Deserve has a website: https://leaderswedeserve.com/that showcases their messaging and a diverse list of current local and state representatives that the Leaders We Deserve PAC supported in 2024.
In their website the Leaders We Deserve state their desire for fierce political voices on the national stage. In his own interviews Hogg has stated that the public perceives the Democrats as failing to “meet the moment”.
Hogg has received pushback from many notable figures in the Democratic Party. Hogg went so far as to claim that the Democratic National Committee might seek to change their bylaws to prevent Hogg from running this campaign while holding his position as a Vice-Chair of the DNC.
Hogg is not the only member of the Democratic party to call for leadership changes; however, earlier this year Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives Hakeem Jefferies proclaimed the DNC would be getting new leadership after current Democratic Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, voted with Republicans to cut 18 billion dollars in federal funding helping the Republican-lead Congress continue to fund the government as they seek to push through 800 billion dollars in federal funding cuts to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
In all, these messaging issues appear to have a basis in reality, as voter turnout presents itself as a significant challenge in the 2026 election cycle. Across the state and at the federal level, legislators seek to diminish voting rights and increase the difficulty of voting for Americans.
The lack of participation in the youth bloc and the diminishing support in the black and Latino blocs of voting were a defining factor in the Republican victories in 2024.
So I will leave you with these questions: Is the Democratic party willing to forfeit control to younger, new-fashioned candidates? What messaging will break through for the democrats in the 2026 elections? Is the Democratic Party simply out of Time?
Next post I will be talking about political messaging. Whats working, whats not working, what people are ready to see. In that I will be talking about some recent elections, the social state of politics and podcasts.
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