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White Students Discuss Why They Wanted To Attend A HBCU

Joshua Packwood is the first white Valedictorian to attend Morehouse University back in 2008, CNN Money recently sat down with him and other non-Black students to discuss why they chose HBCUs over predominately white colleges.

Packwood’s experiences led him to want to major in African-American studies in college. So a guidance counselor suggested he consider Morehouse College, one of the most iconic historically black colleges in the United States.

He was accepted to Columbia, Stanford and Morehouse.

Some of his friends were concerned that opting for Morehouse over Columbia (where he had received a full financial aid package) would be a mistake, Packwood said. “People were concerned that I would be sacrificing a great education and opportunities to gain a unique experience that was not guaranteed to be uniquely good,” he said.

But unlike Columbia and Stanford, Morehouse recruited him aggressively, he said. Packwood recalls a phone call where a Morehouse dean tried to encourage him to accept their offer so he wouldn’t “be the only brother on the yard at Stanford.”

Many of his classmates were also wealthier, better dressed and more articulate than he was, Packwood said. It made him realize how class could sometimes be more of a unifying factor than race and how poor blacks and poor whites might have more in common with each other than, say, poor whites and rich whites.

As the future of affirmative action is being considered, Packwood — who was both an ethnic and economic minority at his school — thinks both race and class should be part of the equation. “If a sensible policy is found that combines those two, I think we will make a lot of progress in helping them close all the gaps that we see.”

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