CELEBRATING HOWARD’S LEGACY
Sunday, April 08, 2018
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
I am glad to know that it is over! The 50th year anniversary celebration of the 1968 Howard University Administration Building takeover is done. I suppose it was a faux celebration, in commemoration, of what had been done before? Am I wrong?
I graduated Howard in 1973 with a B.A. in Print Journalism from our then-new School of Communications. I graduated Howard Law School in 1976 from our then-newly acquired Dumbarton Campus. A brother of mine graduated in 1978, and my first-born son finished in 2001. We all have interfaced with the Office of Financial Aid, as did literally tens of thousands of others, alumni, or otherwise.
Mrs. Goldie Claiborne, Director of the Office of Financial Aid, and Mrs. Green, her able assistant, were absolutely indispensable to our acquiring our degrees! Financial aid, for historically oppressed people, is the water and sunlight, to the fruition of all hopeful seeds of our too-long-oppressed African American people.
I do not know the factual circumstances concerning the 2018 A-building takeover. Nor am I competent to comment upon its occurrence nor its resolution. Rather, I write this hymn of love to note its place in our verdant history. Nowhere will that verdant history be more visible, be more heart-felt, than at next month’s graduation ceremonies. Then, multiple generations of our beloved Bison graduates and their families will return to the “Yard”—in festive attire—to celebrate, to congratulate, to commemorate, their blessed fruition, this newest edition, of our noble ancestry!
Amen.
CELEBRATING HOWARD’S LEGACY
Sunday, April 08, 2018
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
I am glad to know that it is over! The 50th year anniversary celebration of the 1968 Howard University Administration Building takeover is done. I suppose it was a faux celebration, in commemoration, of what had been done before? Am I wrong?
I graduated Howard in 1973 with a B.A. in Print Journalism from our then-new School of Communications. I graduated Howard Law School in 1976 from our then-newly acquired Dumbarton Campus. A brother of mine graduated in 1978, and my first-born son finished in 2001. We all have interfaced with the Office of Financial Aid, as did literally tens of thousands of others, alumni, or otherwise.
Mrs. Goldie Claiborne, Director of the Office of Financial Aid, and Mrs. Green, her able assistant, were absolutely indispensable to our acquiring our degrees! Financial aid, for historically oppressed people, is the water and sunlight, to the fruition of all hopeful seeds of our too-long-oppressed African American people.
I do not know the factual circumstances concerning the 2018 A-building takeover. Nor am I competent to comment upon its occurrence nor its resolution. Rather, I write this hymn of love to note its place in our verdant history. Nowhere will that verdant history be more visible, be more heart-felt, than at next month’s graduation ceremonies. Then, multiple generations of our beloved Bison graduates and their families will return to the “Yard”—in festive attire—to celebrate, to congratulate, to commemorate, their blessed fruition, this newest edition, of our noble ancestry!
Amen.
