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Howard University Homecoming: Elders of The Mecca reflect on homecoming traditions

By: Amber D. DoddSpecial to the AFRO adodd@afro.com Homecoming may be a longstanding tradition at all universities, but Howard University’s homecoming is like no other. From all walks of life, alumni, students, friends and family, all gather in Washington D.C. to celebrate the lifelong bonds that Howard University has fortified. But, surviving the latest pandemic and […]
The post Howard University Homecoming: Elders of The Mecca reflect on homecoming traditions first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

1 year ago

October 23, 2023

AFRO Staff

By: Amber D. Dodd
Special to the AFRO
adodd@afro.com

Homecoming may be a longstanding tradition at all universities, but Howard University’s homecoming is like no other.

From all walks of life, alumni, students, friends and family, all gather in Washington D.C. to celebrate the lifelong bonds that Howard University has fortified. But, surviving the latest pandemic and the everchanging dangers of being Black in America, these reunions and long-time-no-sees hugs resonate harder for older alum.

“This is going to be with you forever, take advantage of your time, even when the worldbeats you up, you can always come home. This is a safe haven from all the riff raff in the world.”

Elder alums spoke to the AFRO about the magic of Homecoming and how reconnecting with old friends, supporting their community and returning to Howard reignites their spirits.

Saturday morning, tailgaters and members of the Beta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha set up their tents in the parking lot across from Starbucks and food as they chatted after the homecoming parade. 2023 marks 47 years in the Alpha fold for Jonathan Johnson of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., 70, who graduated with a political science degree in 1974. “Because of Howard, I was prepared for the world,” he said.

“Howard has been great to me, I got a great education. I worked downtown at the White House and the folks from Harvard or Yale could tell me nothing because I went to Howard,” Johnson said. “My degree took me all over the world, in every continent except Antarctica.”

Jonathan Johnson, one of the elder members of the Alpha Phi Alpha’s Beta chapter attending their homecoming tailgate, returned to The Mecca to reminisce on his times at Howard. Meeting his wife Bonny Johnson on campus, earning a degree in 1974 and traveling the world, he called his Howard memories “priceless.” (Source: Arnold Johnson/AFRO)

One of the eldest members present from the Beta chapter, Johnson said he returned to enjoy the festivities and boasted about the Alpha’s Homecoming Greek Step Show win on Friday night. He visited his old dorm room in Cook Hall Room 129 and found landmarks where he met his wife of 47 years, Bonny, on campus.

“It’s good to see Howard has grown, it’s good to see that Howard is still the Black Mecca and the leader of HBCUs.” Johnson said.

Brian Watkins, another Beta chapter member and 1990 graduate, called Howard the “best four years of my life.”

During homecoming tailgating festivities, Brian Watkins spoke about how times have changed at Howard since graduating in 1980. He worries that D.C.’s cost of living, and activities that compete for children’s attention have altered the college experience. (Source: Arnold Johnson/AFRO)

“Homecoming is home, it’s reconnecting, it’s reenergizing, it’s just so welcoming to be back, I want everyone to experience this.” He said.

Watkins says that the biggest difference in the Howard experience today is DC’s cost of living and the definition of fellowship.

“HBCUs have to compete for the best Black minds now, and I think Howard’s doing pretty well, but I am concerned about the cost of tuition and housing,” Watkins said. “This is all great, but students can’t afford to live here. I talk to parents and they’re talking about paying $1,500 a month for housing. Plus, college is competing with so many other things for these kids’ attention. All we had to do was leave the dorm and that was our whole day right there.”

Saturday’s biggest draw was the football game against Norfolk State University. This year, football alum Richard McGee, a 71-year-old Washington D.C. native, returned to William H. Greene Stadium 43 years after his last game as a offensive lineman in 1980.

McGee said that there was a “collective understanding” about the importance of education for Black men and general feelings at the time.

Richard McGee, 71, returned to Howard to celebrate homecoming football traditions including the 30-year anniversary honoring of the 1993 Howard football team. A member of the football team in the 70s, McGee is a member of Howard’s 2005 Football Hall of Fame class. (Source: Arnold Johnson/AFRO)

“We all felt that we were all in a serious time, because the Vietnam War was going on at that time, and the one thing that brought you to reality is to know that you can be sent to the war at any time,” McGee recalled. “You flunked out, you were in the jungle the next year.”

In high school, he integrated the Bladensburg High School football team. While alone in that experience, his fellow Howard teammates also broke the color barrier at their respective schools too.

McGee is a member of the Howard University Football Hall of Fame 2005 class and said that, with Howard’s long standing traditions still honored at the best Homecoming of all time, it shows the consistent Black excellence that the University produces.

“This is going to be with you forever, take advantage of your time, even when the world beats you up, you can always come home. This is a safe haven from all the riff raff in the world.” McGee said.

(From L to R) Deitre Epps, Yolanda Rowell, Felicia Carpenter are members of Howard’s Class of 1987 who enjoyed homecoming festivities by William Greene stadium. After decades of separation, they reunited at this year’s homecoming, reviving their friendships for the first time in nearly 40 years. (Source: Arnold Johnson/AFRO)

While patrons filtered into the stadium for the Howard Bison’s homecoming battle against Norfolk State University, many ignited old flames and friendships with familiar faces. This was the case for a trio of Howard women from the Class of 1987, Yolanda Rowell, Felicia Carpenter and Deitre Epps. They reflected on Howard’s political landscape in the 80s and how daughters of Black revolutions around the world were flocking to the Mecca.

“We were here with Stevie Wonder, and we marched right up to Washington to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a [federal] holiday,“ Rowell said. Epps also mentioned students being arrested for protesting the apartheid at the South African embassy.

“Jesse Jackson was running for president, and that was one of our first Black men on the ticket,” Rowell said. “Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, they were my favorite groups. At the time, our radicalism was perfect. It spoke volumes to me.” Rowell said.

Now at homecoming this year, they chatted about the goals they’ve accomplished, the everyday whereabouts and the children they’ve raised. With these new updates, it’s true that with distance, Epps said, the heart does grow fonder.

“Imagine how that felt after 40 years,” Epps said. “It felt like a belonging, home, family, remembered, cherished, all of those things. Some of this stuff doesn’t come back immediately, but what does come back is that feeling.”

“Yesterday, Felicia said that we’re going to meet up with Yolanda, I said I don’t remember her until she started describing her and then I had this “ding!” moment, asking ‘Wait, Yolanda with her hair like that?! Who curled it under with a bump curl? An image of her 40 years ago popped in my head.”

Rowell beamed with pride for another one of their classmates: United States Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We’ve got the vice president from here, and just to see her hold it down, I just see ‘truth and service’ all in it,” Rowell said of Howard’s motto. “I think there was a torch being passed from Thurgood Marshall being the first Black Supreme Court Justice. She’s not sitting in the seat, Kamala is working and that’s the beauty of it.”

In a thriller Homecoming game against the Norfolk State Spartans, Howard University battled for a 27-23 victory in Greene Stadium Saturday afternoon.

At halftime, the 1993 football team were honored for their 30-year anniversary. Under head coach Steve Wilson, the team went undefeated in that season, winning the 1993 MEAC conference title. Doug Morency was an offensive lineman at that time, and beamed with pride at the stadium-wide recognition.

“Coming back 30 years later, seeing how Howard has progressed and how the team has progressed, it warms [my] heart because I was part of this foundation,” Morency said. “It’s really beyond football. Football was just a catalyst.”

Morency recalled the love he shared with his teammates, calling them brothers that “never lost touch.” He said that Howard’s homecoming festivities are a testament to the University’s ability to build lifelong friendships throughout the Black community.

“We bled together, cried together, won together, fought together, and DC was a different time back then, we had to stick together to survive,” Morency said. “Thirty years later, we’re still close. We have lawyers, doctors, vice presidents, Olympians, congress people, you name it. It’s about life after football as a Howard man.”

The post Howard University Homecoming: Elders of The Mecca reflect on homecoming traditions appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers .

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

The post Howard University Homecoming: Elders of The Mecca reflect on homecoming traditions first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

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March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 6, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.

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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 6, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.

The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.

“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”