So You’re Going To An HBCU Homecoming: A Beginner’s Guide

Supply: Paras Griffin / Getty

Congratulations. You’ve lastly been invited to an HBCU Homecoming.

Perhaps it was your cousin. Perhaps it was your homeboy from again within the day. Perhaps it was your new “particular good friend” who determined gentle launches are for chumps. Or perhaps you simply lastly bought inquisitive about what all these obnoxious Instagram posts populated by the happiest Black individuals you’ve ever seen had been about.

Nonetheless it occurred, you’re in now. You’re about to expertise the Voltron of negritude that’s the cookout, the block occasion, the household reunion, and the style week of Black America in a single singular event.

However earlier than you pull up on the first completely happy hour pondering some A Completely different World reruns and Drumline bought you set for the tradition, let’s get you significantly located. I do know you’re a veteran in these streets, however this can be a complete new recreation. Homecoming isn’t a spectator sport; it’s participatory anthropology. It’s tradition in progress.

It’s 72 hours, eight totally different venues, 5 outfit adjustments, and two bottles of the yes-yes-y’all.

It’s elaborate daps, hugs with hums, and aggressive slaps on the again.

It’s an occasion that, whereas noticed throughout the HBCU spectrum, has its personal distinctive and delightful expressions from yard to yard.

You goin’ to homecoming, child! And that is your newbie’s information to some of the superb experiences you’ll ever have. Get your crimson cup and sun shades, and let’s experience.

The Guidelines:

1. Gown appropriately (and know what “applicable” means right here).

Pay attention, dressing for an HBCU Homecoming is a column I may write unto itself. You’ll see individuals who’ve been planning their Saturday tailgate outfit since reunion and have put extra thought into that day’s gear than they could’ve put into precise school.

However, for you, there’s a number of watchouts.

If you happen to’re not an alum, please don’t put on college gear. Not as a result of individuals will press you, it’s not that deep, fam. However as a result of our reminiscences ain’t what they was, you may mistakenly end up trapped in a 20-minute dialog about which dorm you lived in in ’98 due to the incorrect shirt. Follow fly and practical: breathable materials, comfy sneakers, and a layer you’ll be able to tie round your waist when the solar goes down and the occasion strikes to any person’s yard.

However, most significantly, put on one thing you don’t thoughts having odor like a mixture of outdoor, cookout, cocoa butter, and fitness center glass afterward.

2. Make pals your individual age.

This one’s crucial. If you happen to got here along with your niece, who’s a sophomore, or your uncle who claims he was on the pool occasion in College Daze, they already bought their individuals. You have to discover your individuals. As a result of, whereas homecoming is a singular vacation spot, it’s comprised of occasions segregated by all method of points, however most acutely by commencement class. So, if you wish to know the place they’re enjoying your music or the group likes to kick it the best way you do, age is the simplest option to do it for the weekend.

If you happen to’re too previous to be consuming Waffle Home at 3 a.m. however too younger to be there in daylight, you’re middle-aged prime time. Discover the tent with loads of locations to take a seat, a accountable assortment of brown liquors and white wines, and the playlist that transitions from Frankie Beverly to Future unironically. That’s your tribe.

3. Tempo your self.

You’re not at your ordinary Sunday Funday brunch, massive dawg. You’re at a weekend-long cultural marathon the place consuming blanco as a substitute of reposado is taken into account acceptable hydration.

Friday is the warm-up. You kick it, however you realize you gotta be on campus by 10 a.m. the following day to assist prepare dinner ribs.

Saturday is the medal spherical. That is what you got here right here for. You possibly can’t faucet out early since you determined to drink out of the Ques’ barrel on an empty abdomen.

Sunday is the reckoning. Yeah, you can sit there at brunch and experience out that hangover like a accountable grownup. Or, you can flip up one final time since you’re not flying that aircraft.

Homecoming is about endurance: bodily, social, and emotional. There’s a whole lot of hugging, holleration, and retelling the identical story six other ways. Transfer deliberately.

Morehouse, Spelman, And Clark Homecoming Parade — Supply: Paras Griffin / Getty

4. Don’t clarify your PWI standing.

We all know. We get it. You went to Northwestern, or Michigan, or UCLA… or the BSU in your campus was “Virtually like its personal HBCU.” It’s tremendous. No one cares.

You’re right here now. Simply get pleasure from it. No one’s checking transcripts. The one factor that’ll get you side-eyed is should you maintain asking what sort of meat is on the grill. It’s homecoming; the whole lot bought pork in it.

5. Respect the historical past (and the within jokes).

You’re getting into a long time of friendship, fellowship, and group initiatives gone incorrect. These of us have Inception-level inside jokes inside inside jokes with a sidebar for the true insiders. You’re not imagined to get all of it.

Don’t attempt to decode the relationships (yeah, they prolly did it). Simply observe the ritual.

Homecoming is a 72-hour catch-up for 20-year tales. The identical crew that couldn’t move “Intro to Accounting” now runs the municipal authorities of a considerably sized southern metropolis. The identical individuals who you recited the phrases to Akinyele with at the moment are planning the Jack & Jill beautillion. It’s messy, lovely, and deeply human. These individuals actually turned adults collectively, enable them to shed that burden for a second in one another’s firm.

6. Depart the undergrads alone.

Their homecoming and ours are usually not the identical. They’re out right here making TikToks; we’re ensuring we bought our Flonase. Allow them to stay their youth. You had your time, again when there was one form of PlayStation and $10 may get you thru a weekend.

The great thing about Homecoming is realizing you’ll be able to nonetheless have enjoyable with out pretending to be 21 once more. And enjoy it. Apart from, these younger’ns don’t know how a lot better it’s to kick it at this age as a result of you realize precisely what it’s value.

7. Don’t fear concerning the recreation.

Look, the soccer recreation is technically the explanation for the season. However for many of us, it’s background noise. The actual motion is exterior the stadium, the place smoke from a thousand grills turns the parking zone right into a battlefield of barbecue.

The soiled little secret right here is that a whole lot of HBCU soccer simply isn’t that good, and the bands are actually the leisure for the day. So, you’ll be able to watch the sport should you completely wish to. However no person’s gonna say you may have some ancestral obligation to look at an entire lotta missed discipline objectives.

The winners and losers aren’t on the scoreboard anyway. They’re within the parking zone, battling over which class continues to be the livest and enthusiastically reciting together with the phrases to “Knuck If You Buck.”

8. Perceive the ritual of the “see and se seen” lap.

In some unspecified time in the future, somebody will counsel, “Let’s take a lap.” This isn’t train. That is the sacred HBCU Homecoming ceremony of seeing and being seen.

It’s an unstated private show of recognition the place you nod at acquainted faces, dap up previous classmates, and faux you keep in mind names. The secret is to confidently keep in movement. You gotta share your drip with the lots. Chances are you’ll not know everybody, however everybody’s fitna know you. So straighten up, smile like your scholar mortgage stability isn’t haunting you, and make that lap rely.

And sure, you’re going to see your ex. Or your ex’s ex. Or your ex speaking to your different ex. Don’t have interaction. That’s a quicksand dialog. When you get into it, you’re trapped. Confidently keep in movement, my good friend.

9. Embrace the chaos (as a result of there isn’t any schedule).

If you happen to’re searching for construction, you’re within the incorrect place. Homecoming runs on what students name “HBCU Customary Time.” Completely happy Hour is after we get there. Until it includes shopping for a ticket, individuals present up after they present up. Or, they don’t, and also you get a name the following day that begins with, “Dawg…”

You’ll have grand plans; the occasion, the sport, the afterparty, the day occasion after the afterparty, and by some means find yourself at somebody’s cousin’s Airbnb at 3 a.m. watching Tiny Desk concert events and consuming Publix hen. That’s tremendous. Go together with it. The perfect moments are by no means on the itinerary.

10. Perceive why it issues.

Beneath the laughter, the style, and the fried meals, homecoming is sacred. It’s the proof that we live our ancestors’ dream — Black excellence not as aspiration, however as custom.

Each band formation, each chant, each stroll, each old-school DJ set is a thread connecting generations who constructed one thing from nothing. For many who went to HBCUs, Homecoming is a homecoming within the truest sense – a return to self. For many who didn’t, it’s a glimpse into what neighborhood seems like when it’s not combating to justify its personal existence. It’s past a secure house; it’s an alternate dimension the place we don’t have to clarify ourselves, restrain ourselves, or be distinctive. It’s a spot the place we are able to simply be regular and respect us being us as we’re.

You’ll see medical doctors, cops, academics, and CEOs all united on this one-of-a-kind fellowship, not due to who they turned, however due to the place they got here from… and what you realize they needed to undergo.

So whenever you hear the group roar throughout halftime or catch somebody tearing up through the alma mater, know that it’s deeper than nostalgia. It’s gratitude. It’s pleasure. It’s a celebration of survival. A second to understand what it means to be seen. To be proud, To be again house.

What Homecoming takes from the physique it provides again threefold in spirit.

You’ll depart exhausted, full, and perhaps nonetheless feelin’ it from final evening, along with your voice gone and your cellphone stuffed with blurry photographs. You’ll promise to dial it again subsequent 12 months (you received’t), and also you’ll spend the following week scrolling by means of everybody else’s footage, realizing you probably did it proper since you’re within the background of half of them.

That’s the great thing about it. Homecoming is rarely simply concerning the college as a vacation spot; it’s concerning the individuals who make the establishment. It’s concerning the feeling of being precisely the place you belong, even should you simply bought there for the primary time.

So, welcome.Keep hydrated.Don’t fear about going to the sport.And keep in mind, there’s in all probability pork in the whole lot.

Corey Richardson is initially from Newport Information, Va., and presently lives in Chicago, In poor health. Advert man by commerce, Dad man in life, and grilled meat fanatic, Corey spends his time crafting phrases, cheering on beleaguered Washington DC sports activities franchises, and yelling obscenities at himself on golf programs. Because the founding father of The Instigation Division, you’ll be able to comply with him on Substack to maintain up together with his work.