If you listen to WAMC, you probably recognize Ayesha Rascoe from her years hosting Weekend Edition Sunday and covering the White House. What you may not know is that she was once a shy, introvert who confronted self-doubt even as she climbed the ladder at Howard University’s student paper. That experience is just one recounted in the new book “HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience,” which features essays from leaders in the arts, letters and music.
It was surprising to me having listened to you over the years that you were shy. How did you come out of your bubble?
No, I still have some shyness in me. I was very shy, introverted, just not good with talking to people. I was really someone who was good with reading and doing schoolwork. But I wasn't good at making friends or anything like that. So when I got to Howard University, it was a real culture shock. I was away from home. I was meeting all of these people and trying to figure out myself. But I will say that Howard gave me a place where I was able to grow and really thrive and find myself.
I’ll cop to this myself. But do you sometimes find it easier to talk to people on the radio for broadcast as opposed to in real life?
Absolutely, because on the radio you kind of have a purpose. You know exactly what you're trying to talk about. When you're just meeting someone in real life you don't know them. There's no goal in mind. There's no clock so it’s harder.
So how did you end up deciding to go to Howard? Because as you write, that was not your first choice or the first place you looked at unnecessarily.
No. I knew that I wanted to go out of state. I knew that I wanted to get away from home but I didn't know exactly what that would look like. But the thing that stood out to me about Howard was it just had this cool veneer. I just felt like it was this place. It was in DC. It was like the basis of Hillman College and in a different world from that show that I love so much. And so I just felt like if I could make it in at Howard, I can make it anywhere. And so it just became this goal that I had in mind. Like, could I do it? Could I make it in the big city of DC and once I went there and saw it, I knew it was where I wanted it to be.
Were you able to prove your stepfather wrong about the decision?
Absolutely, because I made it. My stepfather was like, I was gonna end up in a dumpster. And we didn't have a great relationship. But I really was scared. And he wasn't the only one. A lot of my family was like, she's so quiet, she's so timid, she's not going to be able to make it in this rough and tumble DC. And I didn't know if I could. I was praying. I was asking the Lord. I thought that I might die at Howard. But I think that what I got from being at Howard was that I'm a lot stronger than I thought and I was a lot more capable than I thought I was. And even though there were times where I felt scared, when I look back on it now, I was still pushing forward. And so that's what I got from Howard.
What makes the experience of going to an HBCU different from going to another type of college.
I think that the experience is different. For a Black person to go to an HBCU is to be in a place where your basic humanity is not questioned. Where people will challenge you and will push you to be the best that you can be. Writer and poet Nicole Perkins talks about this in her essay. They're not asking you to basically prove that you're capable of thought. She says when she went to a predominantly white institution for graduate school, it was very different than her experience at Dillard, which is an HBCU in New Orleans. So I think that that's what you get. You get the ability to grow, not without problems or without strife or issues, but you don't have this layer of racism flowing through every interaction and it actually makes a huge difference.
And I have to imagine the thing that happens to a lot of people of color where you're the only one in a space.
Yeah. And that's really difficult to be the only one and to feel like you don't have anyone there who can relate to you and your experience. And also feeling like people are looking at you like, do you belong? Whereas on an HBCU campus, there is this feeling of community that I saw over and over these different essays where you saw people really rise up and get the help and the support of the HBCU community. Tendayi Kuumba, of Spelman, is a Broadway dancer now but she got into an accident when she was at Spelman and the community really wrapped their arms around her and supported her. And now she's on Broadway.
A lot of the colleges that are featured in this book were founded at a time when Black people were not allowed to go to other colleges, explicitly or not. But what's the need for HBCUs as we go forward in a time when more opportunity is available?
Yeah, and I always want to be clear. I don't think HBCUs are going to be the best fit for every student and every Black student. They certainly wouldn't have the ability to educate every Black student in this country. But what I think this book does, and what I'm so proud of it for, is that it shows the important role that HBCUs played but also continue to play in shaping this world that we have today and in training the people that you hear, the people that you see and the people behind the scenes. So whether you're hearing me on Sunday talking about the puzzle, or you're seeing Oprah Winfrey or young talent like Brandon Gilpin, an actor who's been on a number of shows and just graduated from Morehouse maybe two years ago. He's the youngest person in the book. So what I am proud of for this book is that HBCUs are still training and developing Black people and Black talent to make the world a better place. And that it's not a history story or a history lesson. It's very much a story of today.
Will you be leaning on your kids to follow in your footsteps to Howard?
Well, I'm trying to put the inkling in their ear. I got them some Howard shirts, but sometimes as a mom, if you put too much pressure on it, then they don't want to do it. But I'm gonna have them read the book as they get older. And I'm trying to kind of sprinkle the idea so that hopefully they'll think about it.
If you don't mind my asking, I was wondering how you balance your Sunday duties with your faith, which you're very upfront about.
That's true. I do miss going to church on Sundays. But I watch church after I get off work because they live stream it. I'm still trying to be very active in my church., but what I'm grateful for is feeling like I've been blessed to be in a position where I can try to bring joy, and not just this empty joy, but this joy of saying we are alive and we should make the best of it. And I can bring that on air to people. So when people say I listened to you on Sundays and I feel better, it makes me feel better about my day. It makes me feel better about going forward, then I can feel like I've done something to help somebody else. And that makes it worth it. I do miss going to church, but I feel like the work that I'm doing hopefully is helping somebody.
