In collaboration with TikTok, the United Negro College Fund honored the contributions of the “HillmanTok” community and the Black educators who utilized the platform in an attempt to bring Black history and Black studies to the masses at a time when both seem to be uniquely vulnerable in a classical education environment March 11 on Capitol Hill.
According to BET, Black content creators and educators associated with HillmanTok, named after the fictional HBCU popularized on “The Cosby Show” spinoff “A Different World,” met up with members of Congress in an attempt to bring increased awareness to the work of those individuals to drive conversations about the power of inclusive education and the preservation of Black history.
Dr. Leah Barlow, an assistant professor at North Carolina A&T State University, an HBCU, is credited as the founder of HillmanTok after she uploaded what she intended as a course preview for her students to the platform.
Dr. Barlow’s content went viral nearly immediately, garnering more than 3.6 million views and 550,000 followers over the course of a week.
Barlow was joined on Capitol Hill by other educators, including but not limited to CPA Thurman Brooks, Denise Francis, Jordyn Brooks, Shyia Simmon, Gyllian Carter, and Kyra Brown, each of whom used the social media platform to engage their followers with content geared toward finance, STEM, the humanities, and personal development in accordance with their expertise in these fields.
According to Ed Smith-Lewis, the senior vice president of Strategic Partnerships and Institutional Programs at the United Negro College Fund, the UNCF wanted to spotlight the brilliance of the Black educators and content creators who have expanded and democratized access to information using digital tools.
“UNCF is proud to partner with TikTok to amplify the transformative power of the #HillmanTok movement,” Smith-Lewis told Essence. “This collaboration celebrates the brilliance of educators, content creators, and digital innovators who are redefining the future of learning and storytelling. By harnessing the power of technology, we are expanding access, elevating the legacy of HBCUs, and engaging a new generation committed to educational excellence. Through this partnership, UNCF reaffirms its role as a catalyst for opportunity—ensuring that HBCUs and their students are equipped to lead, innovate, and thrive in an evolving digital landscape.”
On Capitol Hill, the educators also utilized TikTok, capturing content with several Congressional representatives, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who has used social media, including TikTok, to bring political discussion directly to her followers and constituents.
In one of the pieces of content shared on Dr. Barlow’s account, Rep. Crockett stressed “the importance of knowing your history and understanding economics,” underscoring how education concerning politics and group economics often go hand in hand, a point that the various chapters of the Black Panther Party of the 1960s frequently drove home to their respective communities.
According to The Hub, HillmanTok plans to move from hosting content on TikTok to a website hosted on GoDaddy under the domain hillmantokhbcu.com, which will be available soon.
The website is expected to feature a course catalog listing all available classes, just like the ones at brick-and-mortar HBCUs.
Students will also be able to sign up for lessons on the site, which is useful as TikTok’s future. Thus, the availability and reach of HillmanTok’s lessons largely depend on how the United States government views TikTok’s ownership.
As Dr. Barlow told The New York Times in February, the urgency created by the hostile political climate to diversity spurred her to post the initial video as Donald Trump was sworn in and quickly moved to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion from the federal government via executive order.
“I think that this has been in the making,” Dr. Barlow told the
outlet. “You have accessibility, not just because of TikTok, but you also have people who don’t have to be in the ivory tower to have the ability to speak. That is something that I find both beautiful and necessary.”Dr. Barlow continued, “I certainly think the political time and the environment is rife with a lot of contention,” she said, before adding that Trump’s assault on diversity programs had given a “fresh urgency” to a project that prioritizes the voices of Black educators.
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