For decades, HBCU campuses have been targeted by politicians wishing to suppress what is essentially a bloc vote. Election officials at the state and local level have manipulated the rules to make it more difficult for students to participate in the political process and students have responded with persistent activism, lobbying, and litigation. Though this is happening at many campuses, there is currently no space where this political work can be viewed together or where student activists can network with each other. This will be a tremendous benefit to students who can learn the political history of their own campuses in the context of a larger HBCU history.  Like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, it will connect like-minded students in an attempt to form coalitions and conceive a national response to the problem of voter suppression.

As a result, the platform will serve as both a digital museum that can be curated by individual HBCUs to tell their own stories and a space to foster inter-campus cooperation among students who are currently doing a lot of this work in silos. We will begin with a full accounting of the experiences of students at Prairie View A&M University that really exemplify the modern battle against voter suppression for both African Americans and college students.  Despite prevailing beliefs about the lack of youth engagement, students at Prairie View and other HBCUs offer an alternative narrative that should be better documented and highlighted.