A gray future for HBCU Albany St. college in Georgia?
Students wonder whether Albany State University will lose its culture, and special status, under a plan to merge with a majority-white school.
By Richard Fausset (LA Times)
Reporting from Albany, Ga. — Every freshman who enrolls at Albany State University knows the saga of this small, proud school.
In a mandatory class, they learn how Joseph Winthrop Holley, a son of slaves, built the campus in 1903 to educate his fellow African Americans here along the banks of the Flint River. They learn how the historically black school survived the roiling race issues of the 20th century — from Jim Crow to desegregation and beyond — and how it survived the muddy Flint, which has flooded the campus time and again.
But today, there is talk of a new kind of deluge at this public school, one that many students fear would do even greater harm: The potential influx of white students from a nearby two-year college, who could go to Albany State under a proposal to merge the campuses that is floating around the Georgia Statehouse.
