You've Got a Place Here, Too

You've Got a Place Here, Too

Introduction

Since publishing Love Radio, I have had the pleasure to speak on panels where some of my favorite Black romance author contemporaries and I are able to gush about one of our most beloved Black love stories, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. When I first picked up Hurston’s novel, published in 1937, I never intended to read a love story.

I read the book young, and what struck me most was Janie’s story of independence and freedom, of finding a love that felt right to her and to love her own way, and choosing herself despite what society expected of her. Though set in the 1930s, Hurston’s novel felt more real to me than any romance story I’d read before (which, FYI, were mainly my mom’s paperbacks with Fabio on the cover).

As a young Black student attending a Historically Black College and University, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of the notable Black women I’d researched who’d attended Howard University. That list included two luminaries, Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. Through their writing, we get a glimpse of how their experiences at their shared alma mater shaped their outlooks on love.

Over the years what I’ve come to love most about graduating from an HBCU is the comradery and the competitive dynamic these schools have toward one another. It’s all in fun, but it is a part of the culture. It too is love. You rep your hood, your school, wherever you come from with pride, embracing its contradictions, beauty, and uniqueness as well as how it has shaped individuals. I got the good and bad while at my alma mater, and I’m thankful for all of it. The setbacks and heartbreaks showed me the woman I was capable of being.

Conversations between alumni and current students can, and do, happen anywhere: on a flight while wearing your paraphernalia or in a corporate setting when you might be one of the few Black people in that space. For me, the best is hearing my “H-U” alma mater’s call, knowing the person who yelled it attended the same school as I did before we even exchange names.

The knowledge I acquired at an HBCU gave me the resources to fly in corporate America; the diaspora and cultures within cultures gave me a sense of understanding about myself in ways I never felt before. We were Black, and that was the wonder.

When I revisit the works of Black women who matriculated through HBCUs, like Hurston and Morrison, I’m reminded of the love stories they wrote themselves and how their words shaped generations of Black women, men, and nonbinary people, including the writers featured in this anthology.

There are over one hundred HBCUs spread across the country, and in this collection we’re highlighting eleven in stories that reflect the experience of finding a place, a possible love in a new city, or a new campus that may feel more like home than the characters—or even I—had ever imagined.

I chose to curate this amazing roster of authors and edit an anthology about HBCU love stories from a place of reverence. In You’ve Got a Place Here, Too, the stories reflect the love we have for HBCUs and reveal what makes them beautiful. And while you’re watching characters (mostly) fall in love on the page, I want you to fall in love with a place—the campus—and know that if you don’t feel a sense of home anywhere, this might be a place for you, too.

I couldn’t have imagined, when I conceived of this idea, that it would allow me to work with a cast of today’s luminaries. Kennedy Ryan takes us to her fictional HBCU, her A Different World as I like to call it, in “Brave the Skies,” a continuation story from her Audible novella Coming Home. She was my top ask for obvious reasons, the most important of which was her care when writing about Black love. And let’s not forget the spice she brings!

It’s why her work is so beloved today. It’s also why I asked New York Times bestselling romance author and Xavier University alum Farrah Rochon to contribute. She shows us the Mardi Gras experience in “Second Line, First Dance,” while Florida A&M University alum Dawnie Walton pens a love story between two alums in “The Highest of Seven Hills.”

It was important to me to have male POVs as well as queer love representation, a topic that for so long was buried at HBCUs. You’ll discover a multigenerational journey of the exquisiteness of our people through the illustrious HBCUs featured. Bestselling and award-winning poet Elizabeth Acevedo writes a Tuskegee Airmen homage, in verse, in “A Flying Lesson,” and Carla Bruce writes of love sprouting in the basement of a Lambda Student Alliance meeting. Critically acclaimed author Kai Harris pays homage to the Fisk Jubilee Singers in “Whatever Gods May Be,” and Carnegie medalist and MacArthur Fellow Kiese Laymon offers a deeper and darker tale in “The Musty.” Award winner Christine Platt takes us west to Langston University with a love that begins with a white lie, and New York Times bestselling author and YA romance queen Nicola Yoon’s lovers make a difficult decision at the University of the Virgin Islands in “Romantic Studies.” While Detroit’s chief storyteller Aaron Foley highlights Michigan’s only HBCU through a secret love, a romance collection is not complete without a café love story, penned by contest winner and North Carolina A&T student Jasmine Bell. Just like HBCUs, this collection’s got something for everybody.

With the recent Supreme Court ban on affirmative action, HBCUs are more important than ever. As students of color contend with more barriers in higher education, I hope this collection will also be a handbook to guide them in making the best academic decisions for themselves. For twentysomething or teen readers, there might be a school here that interests you. For the alum wanting to feel nostalgic for their time at their alma mater, we got you. For readers who’ve always wondered what it’s like to attend an HBCU, here’s a peek into the experience. For my romance readers who are looking for some tender Black love stories, there’s so much in this collection to enjoy.

And if this anthology happens to inspire you, then guess what? My hope is that you’ll fall in love . . . with the characters, with the wisdom they offer, and with yourself. That you realize your love has a place here, too.

(And if it’s with someone else, that’s an additional perk.)

—Ebony LaDelle