(In)Visible Men at Historically White Institutions

This book examines the experiences of Black men navigating the campus racial climate of historically White institutions (HWIs).Drawing on interviews, observations, and a visual project with Black college men at a private historically White university, the book explores how Black men are simultaneously made hypervisible and invisible through the racialized and gendered visibility regimes of the university. It examines how numerical underrepresentation, racialized surveillance, stereotypes, institutional practices, and interpersonal interactions shape Black men’s experiences of belonging, recognition, and success. The book centers Black men’s agency, examining how they respond to and negotiate these conditions through presentations of self, strategic repositioning, and other forms of resistance. It highlights counterspaces, including Black student organizations and supportive relationships with faculty, as critical sites where Black men reclaim and manage visibility on their own terms, and offers readers a framework for understanding visibility as both a condition of racial inequality and a site of agency and possibility.Essential reading for scholars and students in higher education, education, sociology, Africana studies, and Black studies, as well as educators and institutional leaders seeking to better understand and address the race-gendered experiences of Black men at HWIs.