Kamala Harris, BLM protests put a new spotlight on HBCUs. Many now hope for a financial reckoning.

Hours before polls closed on Election Day, Howard University — the place Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris spent her undergraduate years — honored her historic 2020 bid.

Harris has been vocal about Howard and how the historically Black institution shaped her life and career. On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Harris wore a sweatshirt stamped with a Howard logo. She recently told an audience at Spelman College she prepared for her debate with Vice President Pence on Howard’s campus in D.C.