[This is beautiful and powerful - please read the entire letter and then look through the list of the signers.]
More than 200 Black professors penned the beautiful open letter below to the courageous 2017 graduates of Bethune-Cookman College. The students defied the presence and rhetoric of 45’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, as she attempted to complete her speech. The graduates turned their backs, literally, on DeVos as she offered her remarks to the chagrin of the college’s administration gathered on the stage. Their act, their courage, in the face of assumed power is the true definition of Unapologetic. In response to their conviction, Dr. Yaba Blay (Dan Blue Endowed Chair in Political Science at North Carolina Central University) organized the collective effort, and Drs. Camika Royal (Assistant Professor of Urban Education at Loyola University Maryland) and Treva B. Lindsey (Associate Professor of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University) penned this powerful sendoff below.
The CASSIUS team is honored they chose to publish with us exclusively.
Dear Graduates of Bethune-Cookman:
First, congratulations! We are so proud of what you have accomplished. You have studied, prepared, planned, learned, and have earned what our parents, grandparents, and ancestors have had to fight, scrape, and die for in this nation. We are proud of you for that!
WATCHING YOU STAND AND TURN YOUR BACKS TO HER MAKES US ELATED. OVERJOYED. HUMBLED. IT WAS A DAY AND A MOMENT THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT CELEBRATING YOU AND WHAT YOU ACHIEVED.
(For the rest; https://cassiuslife.com/2922/bethune-cookman-graduates-open-letter/)
More than 200 Black professors penned the beautiful open letter below to the courageous 2017 graduates of Bethune-Cookman College. The students defied the presence and rhetoric of 45’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, as she attempted to complete her speech. The graduates turned their backs, literally, on DeVos as she offered her remarks to the chagrin of the college’s administration gathered on the stage. Their act, their courage, in the face of assumed power is the true definition of Unapologetic. In response to their conviction, Dr. Yaba Blay (Dan Blue Endowed Chair in Political Science at North Carolina Central University) organized the collective effort, and Drs. Camika Royal (Assistant Professor of Urban Education at Loyola University Maryland) and Treva B. Lindsey (Associate Professor of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University) penned this powerful sendoff below.
The CASSIUS team is honored they chose to publish with us exclusively.
Dear Graduates of Bethune-Cookman:
First, congratulations! We are so proud of what you have accomplished. You have studied, prepared, planned, learned, and have earned what our parents, grandparents, and ancestors have had to fight, scrape, and die for in this nation. We are proud of you for that!
WATCHING YOU STAND AND TURN YOUR BACKS TO HER MAKES US ELATED. OVERJOYED. HUMBLED. IT WAS A DAY AND A MOMENT THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT CELEBRATING YOU AND WHAT YOU ACHIEVED.
(For the rest; https://cassiuslife.com/2922/bethune-cookman-graduates-open-letter/)
