By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor
We are the only racial group within the United States ever forbidden by law to read and write. – Alice Childress
HBCU campuses are not buildings. They are monuments of defiance on consecrated ground. The price paid for them was not tuition but the blood and sacrifice of a people who were beaten and sometimes killed for daring to learn.
The sons and daughters of formerly enslaved people sold chickens and eggs and cobbled together their nickels, dimes, and quarters to build the schools before they had proper roofs, books, desks, or enough food to eat. White mobs burned those schools because they knew that Black education threatened the entire architecture of white supremacy.
Central State University has stood on that sacred ground for 139 years. On September 26 and 27, its president is coming to Toledo to ask this community to help it keep standing.
What Central State Is
Founded in 1887, Central State University is Ohio’s only public HBCU and its only public 1890 Land-Grant Institution — two hours from Toledo. For nearly 140 years, it has done what the broader higher education system has often refused to do: open its doors to Black students, prepare them for leadership, and send them back into the world equipped to serve. That legacy lives in the professionals who walked through those doors when other doors were closed.
Morakinyo A.O. Kuti, PhD, Central State’s 10th president, will speak to Toledo’s community on Sunday, September 27 at Third Baptist Church. He is arriving under financial pressure and a community’s determination to keep sacred ground sacred.
The Honest Story
Let’s keep it real about what CSU Day also is. Central State was placed under fiscal watch by the Ohio Department of Higher Education in 2024. Like most HBCUs, CSU was never given the philanthropic cushion or political protection that predominantly white institutions received.
A national higher education expert put the challenge plainly: “Central State faces a triple burden — a regional public institution in a state where most of its natural student market has historically traveled to southern states to matriculate, competing in a national HBCU market while there are simply fewer Black young people to recruit than a generation ago.” The state told Central State plainly: your Ohio enrollment numbers are not high enough. Toledo is part of the answer.
Within the past 30 days, the Ohio legislature allocated $25 million to Central State as part of its financial recovery — confirmed by State Senator Paula Hicks-Hudson and State Representative Elgin Rogers. That a conservative legislature recognized its obligation to Ohio’s only public HBCU is significant. But money without students is an institution without a future. Toledo has a role to play in making that investment count.
What Is Under Attack
The pressure on Central State is not only financial. DEI programs are being dismantled across the country. Ohio’s Senate Bill 1 bans diversity efforts, regulates classroom discussion and directly puts diversity scholarships at Central State at risk. The Department of Education is under threat of elimination. History is being erased from school curricula — the same history that explains why HBCUs exist and why they matter. And the school-to-prison pipeline keeps routing Black youth away from campuses and into cells. Black students are suspended and expelled at rates far exceeding their white peers, more likely to encounter law enforcement in their schools than counselors, and less likely to complete a four-year degree — not because of ability, but because the systems meant to support them have been systematically underfunded and undermined.
The same forces that burned Black schools in 1865 are defunding them in 2026. The names have changed. The intention has not.
Why Central State, Why Now
At the University of Toledo or Bowling Green, a Black student is often just a number that gets lost in the shuffle. Central State offers faculty who look like you, who share your lived experiences, and who know how to look out for you in ways other institutions cannot — and increasingly will not.
The expert was direct: If students don’t enroll, institutions close. The programs cut first are the ones serving people who look like us. There is a historical preservation component here. And the literature is clear — when students have faculty and staff who share their lived experiences, they are more likely to graduate.
Central State is two hours away. You don’t have to go to Howard or Spelman or Florida A&M to get an HBCU education. Ohio has one. It needs Toledo. And Toledo needs it.
Come
CSU Day is September 26 and 27 at Third Baptist Church, 402 Pinewood, Toledo. On Saturday, students and families receive on-the-spot admissions guidance, scholarship and financial aid information, and direct conversations with Central State representatives. The presidential address is Sunday afternoon, September 27.
Our ancestors sold chickens and scraped together their nickels, dimes, and quarters to build these schools. The least we can do is show up on a Saturday morning in September — and bring somebody with us.
As Robert Smith put it: “There is no greater investment our community can make than embracing the future of our young people through education.”
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org