Black Females in Higher Education at HBCUs: The Paradox of Success

In the book “Shouldering the Third Burden: The Status of African-American Women,” Dr. Julianne Malveaux writes about how African-American women bear a third burden. As an economist and president of Bennett College, one of only two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States whose sole purpose is to nurture and educate black females, Dr. Malveaux has seen the third burden up close. She describes it as a dynamic interplay of race, gender, and class in ways that makes black women's lives and futures inseparable from that of black men.