Cookout celebrates culture of historically Black colleges

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

The fifth annual Queen City HBCU Cookout Scholarship fundraiser will bring Black college alumni together Aug. 10 at Johnson C. Smith University.

Jerome Brooks and Tia Boyd never thought they would start an organization that helps students attend historically Black colleges and universities.

Together, the pair founded Queen City HBCUs Inc., an organization whose goal is to expand the Black college brand. On Saturday, they will host the fifth annual Queen City HBCU Cookout Scholarship fundraiser from 3-7 p.m. at Johnson C. Smith University.

“It is a conglomerate of all 40 HBCU alumni chapters here in Charlotte,” Brooks said.” Our purpose and goal, of course, is to kind of expand the brand of HBCUs and connect all the chapters together to network and fellowship, essentially to support each other. And of course, one of our main goals with respect to our signature event, is to raise scholarship money for local students who plan to attend various HBCUs.”

The cookout will be emceed by radio personality and JCSU alumna Ms. Jessica, and the university's International Institution of Sound marching band, will also perform.

Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for kids ages to 5-10.

Brooks and Boyd said the cookout feels like HBCU tailgates down to the tents decorated with different HBCU logos.

“We normally have about maybe 20 to 30 various HBCU tents there,” Brooks said. “We have an MC who emcees the entire event. We also have a wonderful DJ that plays music spanning about three decades.

“We also have plenty of vendors, and normally these are Black-owned vendors, and we provide them the opportunity to sell their merchandise and products and services. And of course, we have great food that’s normally catered by an HBCU alum.”

Brooks and Boyd said planning for the event starts in April when they get together with the HBCU alumni chapters to put the cookout together.

Though the event promotes family fun and HBCU pride, the cookout has a bigger purpose: get scholarships to students attending an HBCU with proceeds going to participating alumni chapters.

“If you come to the cookout, you'll see individuals volunteering,” Boyd said. “Individuals check you in. Those are all HBCU alumni, and they’re volunteering because at the end of the cookout, proceeds are donated directly to their alumni chapters for scholarships.

“Some of these alumni chapters are from towns and cities that are nowhere near Charlotte, so they may only have, like, four alumni in the area. So, they take these monies to actually start up the alumni chapter, to actually open up a bank account, get the process started so they can build the alumni chapter.”

The first cookout was held at Bojangles Coliseum in 2019, a year after Brooks and Boyd met at a North Carolina A&T State University football watch party. Boyd, an A&T alumna, was the host.

“Jerome being an HBCU alum (Jackson State University), he attended the watch party, and we started talking, and we started talking about doing things together just to build HBCU unity in the area,” Boyd said. “So, while we were chatting, he just basically said, ‘you know, we need to do more things together as a collective unit.’ And we started out there, and we just joked around. We said, well, let’s do a cookout. So maybe we can do a cookout where we all get together and then just start building on that to promote unity in the Charlotte area.”

Boyd said the reason behind having a cookout is because it reminds her of homecoming, which is a big social event at Black colleges.

“We want to take it back to someone grilling you, having fun, good music, seeing the different HBCUs, maybe some HBCU games, and just a good time,” Boyd said. “So, we wanted to remind you of homecoming, but homecoming on a different scale.”

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