(RNS) — Visiting historically Black college campuses during homecoming observances over the last month, Blexit, a conservative Black group run by the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, has received pushback from some university officials and commentators.
Hampton University in Virginia and Howard University in Washington were among 10 institutions announced as locations of the tour by the group that was founded by conservative activist Candace Owens. The group, which describes its mission as focused on “Faith, Family, and Freedom,” merged with Turning Point USA in 2023.
According to its website, the “Elevate to Liberate” tour started on Sept. 25 at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, and will conclude Friday (Oct. 31) at Bowie State University in Maryland and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
The group has previously toured historically Black campuses, but this year’s plans seemed to raise greater concerns in light of Kirk’s killing in September and increased discussion about his views, some of which have been called racist by his critics. His supporters, including some conservative Christian students, deny that description of him.
Hampton officials said Blexit made an unauthorized appearance on campus as the group did not complete an application required for vendors.
“Members of the BLEXIT organization walked onto campus on Friday, 10/24 and proceeded to film ‘man of the street’ type of content,” Richelle D. Payne, Hampton’s vice president for strategic communications and marketing, told Religion News Service in an emailed response to questions.
The school, which has an enrollment of 4,686 students, denied that Blexit was shut off the campus.
“This was not a matter of suppression; it was a matter of safety, procedure, and fairness,” the school said in a statement. “This procedural failure meant they were not approved to participate, consistent with University policy and communicated in advance to all applicants. … Hampton University welcomes organizations and speakers representing a variety of perspectives, provided they follow established protocols. BLEXIT failed to meet those standards.”
The Blexit tour during homecoming events has drawn criticism for being held at a traditional time of celebration and pride for HBCU students and alumni.
“It is a sacred time of year when alumni, current students and community stakeholders come together, acknowledging that we can be diverse in ideology yet unified in purpose, that joy itself is a form of resistance,” wrote Josh Rodgers in a commentary in Ebony magazine, an 80-year-old publication that highlights the culture and politics of Black people. “To use that moment of celebration to recruit students into a movement built on division misses the entire spirit of HBCU life.”
Panama Jackson of The Grio, which covers Black lifestyle and culture, similarly wrote, “While Black America can accurately be described as non-monolithic, homecoming season at our HBCUs tends to be a time when we’re all on one accord: Do not disturb this groove.”
Blexit, which the group says “stands for the ‘black exit’ from the victimhood mentality,” explained on its website why it picked the occasion for the tour: “Timed during the excitement of homecoming season — when school spirit is at its peak — we’re stepping onto campuses to challenge the status quo and champion empowerment, personal responsibility, and the American Dream.”
Howard University’s Office of University Communications wrote in an email that a Blexit representative engaged “students in conversations as they walked past (the representative’s) location on Sixth Street, which is a public street that runs through our campus,” on Friday, but it was not known how many people engaged with the organization.
“For the time that the BLEXIT representative was present the engagement was cordial and the topics of his conversations are unknown to university staff,” the statement added.
Without naming Blexit in particular, Dr. Wayne Frederick, Howard’s interim president and president emeritus, asked homecoming participants in a Friday safety video “to remain aware of your surroundings and avoid engaging with anyone who seeks to disrupt the celebratory spirit that represents the very best of us who are Bison,” referring to the name of the mascot of the school, which has a student enrollment of 14,433.
Earlier in the tour, Stephen Davis, a Blexit contributor and podcast host, described an Oct. 17 visit to Tennessee State University in Nashville, where, according to a local NBC news report, Blexit representatives were escorted off campus because they did not have a permit.
“I went to TSU to engage in respectful conversation, only to get kicked out shortly after landing on campus,” he said in a Facebook post, describing the situation “before police descended on me” as having included interviewees who were open to discussing different ideological viewpoints.
Davis said he was disappointed by those seeking to end the discussion and similar efforts toward dialogue.
“As always, witnessing such things take place saddens me, due to such people maintaining the ideological slavery within the black community, all the while complaining that no one wants to work with our race for our betterment,” wrote Davis, who vowed on Facebook to continue Blexit’s mission. “They forget that such betterment starts in the mind through the medium of presented information, which sometimes is established through peer to peer conversations. For some, the maintenance of ignorance — for themselves and others — is the comfortable slavery they wish to continue for all black Americans, whilst using the victim mentality as the bulwark against meaningful progress.”
TSU’s public relations and communications office declined to comment on the Blexit visit to campus.
Stephen Fusi, chief brand officer of North Carolina Central University, an HBCU in Durham with a student enrollment of 9,281, said three Blexit supporters “walked around campus and asked students to engage with them,” but he could not provide information about how many students were involved in the interactions or the details of the discussions.
Meanwhile, Alonda Thomas, vice president of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, which has an enrollment of about 9,000 students, said, “The Blexit visit to FAMU during homecoming was canceled.”
Other HBCUs not respond to requests for comment about Blexit visits to their campuses.
A Blexit representative, who asked not to be quoted by name due to concerns about pushback, told RNS that those who have considered some of Kirk’s comments to be contentious in general or racist in particular are taking the TPUSA founder’s words out of context.
Kirk criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discriminatory practices in hiring and segregation in public places, and said the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was “awful” and “not a good person.”
“I feel like everybody has to get the whole message instead of listening to sound bites,” the Blexit representative said.