The Collection

        On Friday, March 4, 2016, award winning author Ta-Nehisi Coaetes addressed the Howard community as the Key Note Speaker of Howard University’s 149th Charter Day. While his remarks were short, his message was impactful. Howard University, the institution and the Mecca are truly beautiful. It is easy to see the physical beauty of the campus and its population, but the deeper and more precious beauty is the heritage that we as Blacks share. This beauty lives within all of us, and just like our lives, it can be taken away. Coates’ charge to the currents students of Howard was to recognize that this beauty is not free, and that we all have a responsibility to it.

            I was extremely humbled by this notion, but moreover, I agree with Coaates. History has shown that the beauty of our people can be made to be forgotten when the burden of chains is thrust upon the backs of our people is too great; it can be slaughtered like the hundreds of thousands of Black men and women who were lynched across the South; and it literally be strangled out of us like the life of an unarmed Black man who strains out the words, “I can’t breathe!” “We have a responsibility to that beauty, we all do in whatever we choose to do,” Coates says. As a writer, Coates has strived to protect this beauty through journalism, and “making sure we are not lied to.” Now, it is our turn to assume this reponsiblity.

            It was an interesting concept to me that through writing, one can not only produce works of beauty, but also work to safe guard it. I believe that while I enjoy learning and writing, my calling is to protect the rights and lives of those who carry that beauty within themselves. I strive to become an attorney and in this way, I will study the works of others those that have passed to protect and defend the beauty of those who live today. I believe that in order to do this to the best of my ability, I will need to ensure the effectiveness of every things I write. I need not only to deliver a message to the ears of are listening, but to also speak to the hearts of those who are watching. It is my ambition to fight for this beauty with my words and my actions to ensure that it is still around for those that follow.