Deion Sanders wants to know where the money resides that was promised to HBCU’s during the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, you heard all the Fortune 500 businesses say, we’re doing this for HBCUs, we’re doing that,” Sanders said last month on the “Pardon My Take” podcast. “Where did the money go? Where did the change go? I haven’t seen any change. I want to know where did it go. I’m hearing all these endowments to all these HBCUs; where did it go?
“Somebody raise their hand and say, ‘OK, we did get the check and this is what we did.’ I haven’t heard that yet.”
The Distribution Slant
Sanders shines a light on donations or lack thereof from the private sector.
According to reports, HBCUs have netted more than $250 million in donations from private donors and philanthropists. However, the distribution of funding could be the culprit as out of the 107 HBCUs in the country, only three received the lion’s share of the funding.
Morehouse College, Spelman College and Howard University have been the recipients of about $160 million, with much coming by way of private donors who own major corporations.
The CEO of Netflix and his wife, Reed and Quillen Hastings alone donated $120 million. The funds were divided between Morehouse, Spelman and the United Negro College Fund. However, aside from the Tuskegee University, Xavier University and the University of Louisiana, schools in the Deep South did not get the same distribution of funds.
Sanders coaches in Mississippi, one of the former seats of the Jim Crow South. The state is economically depressed and always rates high on the poverty scale and low on the employment rate.
Do You CARE?
Then there’s the federal money which also apparently must be missing for Jackson State.
According to the CARES website, “the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act CARES Act is a bill that allotted $2.2 trillion to provide fast and direct economic aid to the American people negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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