Bomb threats target Georgia HBCUs on first day of Black History Month

February 1st, 2022

Spelman College in Atlanta and Fort Valley State University just south of Macon both received bomb threats Tuesday morning — a day after other historically Black colleges and universities in Georgia and across the U.S. were the targets of similar threats.

The latest threats against HBCUs came on the first day of Black History Month.

Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies found no bombs or other explosives on Spelman and Fort Valley State’s campuses, the schools announced Tuesday afternoon.

Fort Valley lifted a campus lockdown around 2:30 p.m.

Spelman, still recovering from the second threat in the last few weeks, kept the school open — with extra Atlanta police officers patrolling its campus.

HBCU graduate Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said in a statement that he pushed the FBI to prioritize the threats, and told WABE he “will not stop until these hateful threats are fully investigated.”

Spelman graduate Dr. Calinda Lee is the head of programs and exhibitions at Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Lee sat down with WABE’s “All Things Considered” host Jim Burress after checking in on faculty and staff she still knows on campus.

Lee says that when thinking about how most HBCUs were formed after the Civil War during Reconstruction, these threats to her alma mater are, sadly, unsurprising.

Lily Oppenheimer contributed to this report.