By Rosetta Miller-Perry
The students at Morehouse College gave many of their peers across the nation a lesson in the proper way to make a statement and protest this past Sunday. When President Joe Biden gave the commencement address, there were those who protested, but they didn’t disrupt anything. They didn’t issue any death threats towards other students, and they didn’t make such a spectacle of themselves that the cause they were highlighting, the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, was ignored due to their conduct.
A key part of the President’s speech was about HBCUs and their importance. Had the students disrupted the speech or even prevented the ceremonies from being held on campus, here’s what would have been missed. The President said “And in addition to the original $7 billion investment in HBCUs, I’m investing 16 billion more dollars, more in our history, because you’re vital to our nation. Most HBCUs don’t have the endowments. The jobs of the future require sophisticated laboratories, sophisticated opportunity on campus. We’re opening doors so you can walk into a life of generational wealth, to be providers and leaders for your families and communities. Today, record numbers of Black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more [wealth] than ever.”
Contrast this with the conduct and actions of the current Republican candidate. When he’s not displaying ridiculous behavior in court during his trials, he’s out proclaiming that when he becomes president again he’s going to exact revenge against his enemies. He’s also working hard to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts on college campuses and in the workplace. He’s actively aiding and supporting efforts to set back the progress that Blacks and others have made in this society, while continuing to be on trial for multiple offenses, something that’s never happened before to any Presidential candidate.
The Tennessee Tribune has always supported the right to protest, and the importance of peaceful demonstrations against social injustice. What we’ve never supported are death threats, attempts to intimidate, hate speech, or the disruption of activities intended to benefit a large number of people. Commencement is a special time in a student’s life, and it only occurs once. A protest during it is one thing: forcing its cancellation or having to move it off campus due to threats or misconduct is totally wrong, and it demeans whatever cause people are supposedly trying to highlight.
The situation in Gaza is a tragic one. There needs to be a ceasefire as soon as possible. What cannot be denied is that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them women and children, is an atrocity and must end immediately. We also support the release of any and all hostages as soon as possible. But efforts to free them are not helped by attacking relief caravans, bombing hospitals or doing many of the other things attributed to the Israeli government.
What students should and must understand though is that there is a right and wrong way to do anything. It doesn’t help the cause in Gaza to get arrested, suspended and expelled from school for destruction of private property or refusal to obey lawful orders to leave a site. The point of peaceful protest is to dramatize a cause, not create additional problems and certainly not to cause a crime. Any students who do those things only hurt themselves and they aren’t helping to end the fighting in Gaza by doing it either,
We are really proud that Morehouse showed the nation exactly how to handle both by not canceling or postponing their commencement activities, yet also finding a way for those who wanted to protest to do it without disruption or interference with the ceremony. It was a great moment, and it was also a big one for HBCUs, as they can without question use additional federal funding and support. We also hope that those always asking for tangible signs of support from this administration for Black community efforts and progress took note of this announcement. It’s not one that you’ll see coming from a Republican administration.
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