Why I Am Boycotting Clark Atlanta's Homecoming Tailgate

Please do not summarize my work by putting it in an AI tool. Read it with your own eyes and trust what you see.

     It is my first year as an alumna of Clark Atlanta University, and I am choosing not to pay for a homecoming tailgate ticket. I’ve got $80 in my bank account – more than that, actually! I am boycotting this year’s tailgate for moral reasons and to bring attention to cultural and social implications of charging for an event that means so much to the Black community.

     For those who don’t know my background, I am a 2020 graduate of Spelman College where I majored in History. As a student at Spelman, I marched in the inimitable Morehouse College “House of Funk” Marching Band which was one of the major highlights of my undergraduate career. I am proud to announce that I graduated from Clark Atlanta University this summer with my master’s degree in Africana Women’s Studies and am currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Humanities at CAU as well. As you can see, I am an AUC (Atlanta University Center) baby DOWN. I love my Black af colleges and have spent the better part of the last 10 years making incredible sacrifices to support and attend them. That being said, I have also attended 9 homecomings, and I have experienced firsthand the sadistic encroachment of predatory capitalism on one of the most coveted celebrations we have – homecoming.

     Homecoming tailgate used to be free. As a broke, hungry, undergraduate student 2,000 miles away from home, homecoming became a lifeline for me. Homecoming was where I was able to receive much-needed hugs from my alumnae Spelman sisters from back home, meet and gain wisdom from past marching band members, and eat something other than Cookout, Subway, or Chick Fil A (and Golden Corral). Homecoming was never a viral moment for me, it was sustenance. It sickens me to see the ways AUC institutions have attempted to profit off of this cultural moment that was built off of the sacrifices of so many generations of Black people. I really want y’all understand how problematic it is to charge for the homecoming tailgate.

     It was through my homecoming experiences that I was able to understand my future responsibilities as a graduate of a historically Black college. I saw the ways people I didn’t even know raise money for scholarships for me, feed me, and pour life into me. Homecoming is supposed to be a place where the traditions, histories, and legacies of these great institutions are on full display in order to be passed down to the newest generation. Attending these schools is hard work! Yes, we see the glamour and the prestige and the aesthetics online, but for MOST students in the AUC, staying in school is a GRIND. The cost of tuition and fees is OUT OF CONTROL!! Do you know how hard it is to raise $50k+ a year when you only have a work study job and a single parent? As Black people in America? Let’s be so forreal. I wouldn’t have made it through Spelman or my master’s program without financial aid and scholarships. I also wouldn’t have made it through without my extended community praying for me and doing what they could to hold me over. It takes a village to get Black students through these institutions, and when that village is being segregated via paywalls and class stratification, I have to speak up about it. 

    Which brings me to my point. In the years following the pandemic, a few HBCUs including Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark began charging an entry fee for the tailgate. Spelman stopped charging in 2023, and I’d like to believe it was because of the feedback that I gave. However, Morehouse and CAU charged $70 and $80 respectively for their tailgate tickets this year. SpelHouse made tickets free for students this year which is great, but CAU told undergrads and graduate students that we are SOL. Institutional apologists and blue lives matter folks love bringing up how downtown Atlanta is unsafe, and we need more security, and homecoming is so expensive to put on. I don’t buy that when numerous administrators are getting paid six-figure salaries. The math does not math. Here’s the thing: it’s not solely about the cost. Remember, that $80 is in my account. It’s about the lack of accountability and the undermining of cultural continuity that is happening because of these schools’ decisions to charge for the tailgate.  

     We love to praise HBCUs and overlook the real issues that affect Black students. We can see it right now, with students at Spelman and Morehouse literally BEGGING the schools to take aggressive action against rape culture at the schools (hint: Morehouse and Spelman openly condemning and reprimanding sexual violence and making gender studies class mandatory would really help this situation!). Clark Atlanta has a twisted culture of patriarchy that is becoming suffocatingly conservative. There is little transparency between the administration and the student population. Decisions are often made without the input of the larger community, and they are often not communicated openly to the community either. As an alum and PhD student, I echo former Spelman professor Howard Zinn’s sentiments when he experienced Spelman’s then-president Albert Manley’s poor handling of student protestors during the Civil Rights movement: tyranny is tyranny.

     What good is my individual tailgate ticket if students and alumni can’t afford to go with me? It does not matter how chaotic our political and economic climate is, we have the agency to stick to values that enrich our community. Just because we are coming out of/living in a pandemic does not mean that we stop practicing democratic ideals, discourage dissent, and defer solely to the most charismatic leader. For two years, I have asked people who is making these decisions about charging for tailgate and who can I speak to come to an agreement about the unaffordable tickets and no one can tell me. That is not a culture that we should be engaging in because it is wrong and it is not sustainable. That is tyranny. When a decision is being made about cultural experience that belongs to all of us, it should be made with all of us in mind, including the low-income students and graduates.  

     I spoke with a second-year student at CAU this week who said he has never been to the homecoming tailgate because he can’t afford the ticket. When I hear that, I am devastated and I think about the cultural and spiritual continuity that is being lost. He, and many other students I have yet to meet, are not getting that same HBCU experience that molds them into becoming empathetic, generous, and proactive Clark Atlanta University grads. I hate to imagine busting my ass to raise the funds to stay at CAU and not even being able to experience one of the most iconic events. I get that it’s expensive, however what is the school doing if not investing in the students? If they have to charge for tailgate, the price needs to come down drastically for alumni, and students need to get in for free. There are some things in life that are more important than a dollar amount. Homecoming ain’t cheap and I know that! But don’t exploit the very community that contributes to the prestige of this institution. The price-gouging of homecoming HAS to stop. And in that same vein, we need to have more transparency about where the money is going. I shouldn’t have to go through the grapevine to find some link to some sketch website. That is not very prestigious and that’s how y’all know what y’all are doing is wrong! You can fix it, Clark Atlanta! Obviously, it’s too late to change it for this year, but we need to start preparing for how we’re going to deal with this next year.

As a graduate of two AUC schools, I have always known that homecoming was a luxury and not an entitlement. I know the cost of the memberships and the games and the vendors and the donations to the schools and a $20 bill to a student here and there! I also know the value of the communities who have made immense sacrifices to keep our HBCUs open including the grandmothers, aunties, moms and dads. Students and alumni deserve to have that special homecoming experience regardless of their financial background. That tailgate experience shaped me into becoming the active and engaged socially conscious thinker and HBCU grad that I am. We cannot lose who we are to vulturous capitalism. We’ve got to find a way or make one to make the homecoming tailgate more affordable for the people it was made for.  

Break the Seal Press is a womanist press dedicating to transforming the world through literacy, advocacy, and opportunity. Our founder, Jacqueline Brown-Gaines, is a first year PhD Humanities PhD student at Clark Atlanta University, and the author of "Adventures with the Funk Haus Band," a spell-binding tale for teens that follows a day in the life of an HBCU band member struggling to survive the HBCU classic on hottest day of the year! Support this work by checking out previous blog posts and purchasing/donating copies of "Adventures with the Funk Haus Band." You can also send a donation to $btspress on Cashapp to help create more opportunities for students to succeed!