At Hillmantok, a Digital H.B.C.U., Class Is in Session

Leah Barlow, a liberal studies professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, prepared to teach her Intro to African American Studies class this semester as she always does: She put together a syllabus, mapped out assignments and created a TikTok account to make the material as accessible as possible.

She posted a video on Jan. 20 welcoming her 35 students to the course. By the next morning, it had surfaced in the algorithm of enough TikTok users that 250,000 people had subscribed to her channel.

Within days, Dr. Barlow’s videos had unintentionally inspired a loosely affiliated network of Black educators, experts and content creators to form what has become known as Hillmantok University, a free — and unaccredited and unofficial — online take on the country’s H.B.C.U.s, or historically Black colleges and universities

In lectures delivered in TikTok-length bursts, and in longer sessions over TikTok Live, instructors are teaching classes in gardening, organic chemistry, culinary arts and other subjects. On the receiving end, organizers say, is an audience of about 16,000 registered users.

“I think that this has been in the making,” Dr. Barlow said in an interview last week from her office in Greensboro, N.C. “You have accessibility, not just because of TikTok but you also have people who don’t have to be in the ivory tower to have the ability to speak. That is something that I find both beautiful and necessary.”

The appetite for information also comes at the dawn of a second Trump administration. Dr. Barlow posted her video hours after President Trump was sworn in and swiftly set about dismantling federal programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Many academics fear a trickle-down effect across education.