Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)
The message was threaded throughout this year’s Beacon National Conference—a meeting to support an initiative the FBI launched in 2021 to cultivate and nourish relationships with leaders of the country’s HBCUs. The FBI’s troubled history with Black and African American communities, particularly during the 1960s civil rights era, is well-documented. The Bureau acknowledged its wrongs at the first Beacon Conference two years ago in Huntsville, Alabama, and pledged again this month to HBCU leaders to continue the hard work of making the FBI better reflect the communities it serves.
“The actions of our past are painful to recall and haunt us still today,” FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said in remarks at the September 6 conference. “Shining a bright light on the past reminds us of how far we have come and informs our future steps. There’s still much, much more work to be done.”
Some of that work took place during sessions at the conference, which included top leadership from nearly all the 25 FBI field offices whose geographic territories have one or more of the nation’s 101 HBCUs.
Topics included partnerships between federal agencies and academia, how to match STEM curriculums to in-demand FBI jobs, and bridge-building between law enforcement and the African American community. There was also a panel discussion about the FBI hate-crime investigation of the racially motivated 2020 murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.
More than 75 presidents and leaders from 58 HBCUs attended the conference, doubling the turnout of the inaugural Beacon Conference two years ago.
“What we are hoping to happen is that pathways between the HBCUs and the FBI and vice-versa will become clearer as the possibilities for collaborations actually move forward,” said Morgan State’s Dr. Wilson. “When you have these kinds of things coming together where it is not just one institution benefitting then you have the ingredient for a long-term partnership.”