In Detroit, where innovation and resilience often grow from the same soil, one woman is transforming how young Black students see the world and themselves. Through The Kindred Collective, a Detroit-founded program, social worker and mother Remeta Hicks-Montgomery has reimagined the classic HBCU tour into a week-long, joy-centered passage through Black history and higher education.
For Hicks-Montgomery, the idea wasn’t born from theory but from memory. “I went on two Black college tours in high school, when I was in the 10th and 11th grades. I’ll be honest; I wasn’t the best student. And so when I saw a flyer for the tour in the library, the first thing I noticed wasn’t the schools — it was all the cities and states they would be visiting,” she says. “I’ve always loved traveling, and even though I wasn’t the best student, I knew I wanted to go to college.”
She remembers the excitement of walking “the same grounds as pioneers I had read and researched about and traveling to places I had never been before, “yet being “unprepared for what it would take to actually make it there and thrive once I made it. I not only lacked confidence, but I also lacked real support. I was the first in my family, and I honestly think my family was just glad I was at a school like Cass [in Detroit] and going to graduate.”
Years later, she created the program she once needed: an HBCU tour that brings together culture, care, and confidence for the next generation of first-generation students.
Redefining The HBCU Tour Experience
In just seven days, The Kindred Collective takes high school students across 10 iconic HBCUs: Howard, Hampton, Spelman, FAMU, Morehouse, and more. The itinerary includes deluxe motorcoach travel, comfortable hotels, curated meals, and immersive campus experiences. But for Hicks-Montgomery, logistics are only part of the mission.
“When I first began organizing tours, I was committed to making sure they were holistic — educational, deeply cultural, historical, and joyful! I never believed that any of these areas needed to be traded to provide a tour that was as much exciting as it was impactful.”
She remembers her second HBCU tour, “My people sent me on the tour with like $150-$200. I was out of money by like the fifth day and no meals were included on the tour. I remember everybody stopping at places, grabbing food and souvenirs, and I had to act like I didn’t want anything or wasn’t hungry because I didn’t have any more money. It was an experience I will never forget.”
That memory of quietly going hungry during her own HBCU tour during high school became a cornerstone for how Hicks-Montgomery designed The Kindred Collective. “One, making sure that meals were a part of the experience so that if a family had to scrape to send their student, like mine did, at least the student would eat twice a day,” she says.
“Second, that we had a tight student safety system, taking headshots of students so that chaperones would be familiar with their students, know them by name, and we’d have a picture just in case something unforeseen were to happen. Having themed days where we can easily spot our students while in the general public and participating in coordinated group activities so students aren’t just wandering alone.”
“Our history and one thing HBCUs stand for is community and care,” she says. “The Kindred Collective leans deeply into that, making sure that we make touring with us accessible, that students and families feel welcome and a sense of belonging, and that we show care and concern for our tour babies while they’re on our watch.”
Turning The HBCU Tour Into Cultural Inheritance
“I think it’s unfortunate that some folks think that in order for something to center Blackness or be rooted, it means that it has to be struggling. I don’t subscribe to that, and I believe that we deserve the best,” Hicks-Montgomery says. “So when I select motor coaches, I’m looking for safety ratings and amenities, ensuring students have access to WiFi and charging ports to be comfortable while traveling.”
She adds, “Having clean, comfortable and highly-rated hotels was a must! I remember on my first college tour, they had us at a motel and it was my first time in the South and also the first time I ever saw a flying cockroach. Lord Jesus! I knew that when I began this work that it would be key that our hotels were places that I would stay with my own family on a vacation.”
Her favorite part is the historical stops. “It is one thing to read about historical figures. It is another thing to walk in their footsteps. There is still sacred energy that surrounds the places where they once led and lived. The historical site visits are my favorite part of leading these tours because I am transformed, too. It is the time on the tour where I, too, am a student.”
Those moments of connection are what inspired Hicks-Montgomery to frame travel not just as exploration but as a form of reclamation. For her, travel goes beyond leaving home or seeing new places. It’s about reclaiming something sacred that was once denied to generations before. She calls it cultural inheritance, a term that anchors everything The Kindred Collective stands for.
“When I say cultural inheritance, I’m talking about the right and the audacity that our students have to choose on purpose, in purpose. Our ancestors literally fought and died for that,” she says. “Too often, our decision-making power is stripped from us and we’re led or forced to move based on limited options. We’re distracted and tricked into seeing only what’s in front of us, and because of that, many of us live small — because of what we don’t know and what we haven’t seen.”
“It’s so much deeper than tours,” she continues. “It’s about the power to choose and act on that choice. One that those who came before us could only dream of.”
Joy, Legacy, And A Detroit State of Mind
Detroit’s grit and pride pulse through The Kindred Collective. “Detroit is a city of grit, of hustle, and of pride. We are straight-shooters, we like nice things, and we shift culture beyond the confines of our city. And it’s all of this that has uniquely shaped Kindred,” Hicks-Montgomery says.
To make sure no student is left behind, Kindred includes fundraising as part of the journey. “So we built fundraising into our model so that there is a way to offset or eliminate most of the out-of-pocket costs,” she explains. “For most students to actually attend an HBCU, fundraising is a must. So, Kindred not only becomes a means to access our tours, but becomes a training ground for securing what is required to ultimately get what you want.”
But even with The Kindred Collective’s structure and strategy, joy remains the heartbeat of it all. “Joy shows up in laughter, in comfort, in new experiences, in inspiration, and in the freedom students experience with us,” Hicks-Montgomery says.
“We believe joy is strategy and radical and resistance. Despite what things might look like or what we might be navigating at a particular moment, joy is what carried our people through and we believe it will carry us through as well.”
