Abstract
This qualitative, phenomenological study sought to explore and understand how Black college students at historically white institutions perceived their racial identity to have been impacted by the emboldened racist rhetoric that ensued after the presidential campaign and election of Donald Trump in 2015. Participants included 12 students within their first through fourth years attending a wide variety of institution types within the states of Minnesota or Wisconsin. During the spring of 2023, I conducted two sets of semi-structured interviews, one of which utilized photo-elicitation. I used open coding to examine interview transcripts, then identified categories and themes. Analysis identified five distinguishable themes: Negotiating Blackness, hypervigilance, (re)conceptualizing Blackness, Black pride, and connectedness. I explicated the findings using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory and Morning’s (2009) theory of racial conception. This study provides many insights and recommendations for practice to stakeholders within predominately white higher education institutions.