Abstract
“Upholding the Tradition” explores the national program The Big Read and Claflin University’s attempt to form community partnerships in order to increase literacy in the primarily black, rural, and poor city of Orangeburg, SC, where the university is located. The essay includes interviews with the program director and with a key community member, Reverend Larry McCutheon, who was instrumental in recruiting more than 40 people to take part in the reading project. The interviews demonstrate how multiple levels of planning and engagement were implemented and also how many HBCUs, like Claflin, approach service-learning. More importantly, this essay attempts to theorize ways in which HBCUs can do a better job of servicing the neighborhoods that house them. Ultimately, The Big Read project, featuring Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, was successful in reaching lapsed readers because it highlighted programs that brought the reader to the book and allowed him or her to become engaged with issues raised therein.