At an HBCU, I Ama Scholar: A Chicana Feminist’s Academic Journey from Performance to Peace

Written By Marisela Martinez-Cola, PhD

Abstract

In this article, I present a testimonio (testimony) that analyzes and compares my experiences at HWIs with my transition to an HBCU. Both a professional and personal piece, I conclude that working at an HBCU provides peace from the performativity of whiteness, diversity work, and muted scholarship. Not all my experiences at HWIs were overwhelmingly oppressive; I also share some positive moments. However, the heart of this article is devoted to identifying the lessons that can and should be learned from HBCUs. I begin by summarizing my educational journey at HWIs, which taught me how to “perform” in predominantly White spaces. Next, I describe the peace I found at Morehouse College, which provided a Black/Brown space that demanded no performance. Drawing on essays from The Souls of Black Folk, Dusk to Dawn, and The Journal of Negro Education, I interweave Du Bois’s reflections about his time at Atlanta University with my own liberating experiences in that same space. Then, I recount my return to the Du Boisian “White World” after experiencing such freedom. Finally, I discuss my return to Morehouse College and address the cost I have incurred for that peace.

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Marisela Martinez-Cola, PhD

Marisela Martinez-Cola, JD/Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Morehouse College. Dr. Martinez-Cola received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and African American Studies at the University of Michigan, her Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and her Doctorate in Sociology from Emory University. She first encountered Morehouse College as a Mellon Mays Teaching Fellow during her final year in graduate school, from 2017 to 2018. She fell in love with Morehouse College and hoped to return in the future. In the Fall of 2021, her dream came true, and she joined the faculty at Morehouse College. She outlines this journey in her most recent publication, “At an HBCU I’m a Scholar: A Chicana Feminist’s Academic Journey from Performance to Peace.”

Her research focuses on critical comparative race studies, where she examines a social phenomenon across different racial groups using critical race theory. In 2022, she published her first book, The Bricks Before Brown: The Chinese American, Mexican American, and Native American Struggle for Educational Equality (The University of Georgia Press), in which she examined school desegregation cases filed before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. She is currently co-editing the fourth edition of Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach with Oxford University Press and working on her second book, The Beginnings and Branches of Critical Race Theory with Routledge She has also been published in several journals, including the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Journal of Law and Society, Latino Studies, and Teaching Sociology. In 2024, Dr. Martinez-Cola was awarded the 2024 Anna Julia Cooper Early Career Award by the Sociology of Education Section of the American Sociological Association. Her current research focus is on race and comedy in the United States, where she plans to interview comedians from diverse racial backgrounds to explore how they approach humor related to race.

https://andrewyoungcenter.org/marisela-martinez
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