Photo courtesy of Stephen Jarrelle Harris/Relnice Photography
North Carolina’s A&T University’s blue and gold marching band was voted 2021’s best HBCU sports band, according to a recent poll from HBCU sports.
The poll was conducted from Friday, Jan. 14 through Friday, Jan. 21, and North Carolina A&T garnered more than 223,329 votes (50.81 percent) of the 439,574 total votes.
Under Dr. Kenneth Ruff’s leadership, this is the third consecutive time the marching band has been recognized for their musical skills on the field.
In addition to receiving the prestigious award, HBCU Sports will reportedly donate $2500 to the band’s program.
As the country’s number one historically black university, North Carolina A&T specializes in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) education. The institution was founded in 1891 “to teach practical agriculture and mechanic arts and such branches of learning as relate thereto, not excluding academic and classical instruction” to African American citizens of North Carolina,” said in a statement from the university’s website.
There were several HBCU schools were also included in the poll. Alabama State finished 2nd place with 156,601 votes (35.6 percent), followed by Southern University with 26,294 votes (5.98 percent), Florida A&M with 25,339 votes (5.76 percent), and Jackson State with 8,111 votes (1.85 percent, HBCU Sports reported
.News Onyx reported that Urban Outfitters (UO (a popular clothing store) recently released an exclusive 24-item capsule collection that five students from three historically black colleges designed as part of the retailer’s HBCU Summer Class of 2021.
During an interview with ABC 11, North Carolina native and HBCU student U’lia Hargrove shared her excitement while taking part in UO’s new HBCU collection.
“The main thing I wanted to get across was basically a little history of my HBCU, and some of its culture, including our fonts, our colors, and some of the slogans that we have on-campus,” she said. “It feels kind of surreal. It feels kind of amazing to be able to kind of be a spokesperson or to bring advocacy to their market of individuals who do shop at Urban Outfitters.”
The clothing brand plans to donate a portion of the money made from purchased items to each student’s HBCU.