On the night before Morehouse College’s May 19 commencement ceremony, David A. Thomas, the president of the 157-year-old all-male Black college, was restless.
For good reason. President Joe Biden was scheduled to be on campus in a few hours to deliver the annual commencement address.
His visit would either end or extend one of the most tumultuous periods in Morehouse’s history, as the school was deeply embroiled in the public debate around the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Thomas didn’t sleep at all. He arrived on campus exhausted and dehydrated. Aides brought him water as he introduced Biden from the podium.
“That was a sign of the stress that until then, I hadn’t recognized,” Thomas said this week in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his first public remarks since graduation. “I didn’t realize how much pressure was on me until graduation.”
Most of the 414 graduating seniors remained seated after the address. A handful of students sat with their backs to the president or carried Palestinian flags with them on stage to receive their degrees. The ceremony was otherwise uneventful.
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Building something special
Thomas, though, said going forward, Morehouse must be more intentional about discussing local, national and global tensions. He said he welcomes the difficult conversations but noted that he couldn’t recall any official discussions on campus about the war before Biden was announced as the commencement speaker.
Thomas invited an AJC reporter and photographer to the Davidson House, his on-campus residence, for the interview.
There was a banging coming from the garage, where workers were installing and repairing the doors. Otherwise, the campus that had been bustling three weeks ago, was eerily silent and desolate, as all of the students had gone home for the summer.
Looking out onto the campus, Thomas said the spirit and essence of Morehouse doesn’t need any “repair work.”
“I don’t think we are in need of doing repair work. But we should take this as an opportunity to ask, ‘How do we strengthen our community and Morehouse’s ability to be a place that people turn to and expect to manage difficult moments for our society and our democracy?’” Thomas said. “I am proud and not surprised at how the Morehouse community managed the event. I actually think it made us stronger.”
While it is still early, there is no indication that the Biden appearance and its aftermath had a noticeable impact on Morehouse’s donations, applications, faculty hiring or resignations.
Floating the Morehouse flag
Thomas called the White House last August and reached out to presidential adviser and Morehouse graduate Cedric Richmond to “float the flag” about inviting Biden to speak at the commencement.
Just days after the formal invitation was sent, on Oct. 7, Hamas launched an attack on Israel.
Thomas said the White House asked him to hold off on approaching their second choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, a sign that Biden was close to committing. By March, two months before commencement, Thomas made it clear to the White House that they needed a firm answer.
That answer came in early April, and the college and the White House made a joint announcement on April 23 after it was first reported by the AJC.
The announcement set off an immediate firestorm, from a select group of students, faculty and alumni who were against Biden speaking on campus because of the administration’s support of the Israeli government. While a petition circulated urging Thomas to rescind the invitation, Morehouse officials held a series of meetings and conversations with campus stakeholders.
Credit: Chauncey Alcorn/Capital B
Credit: Chauncey Alcorn/Capital B
Shaken
Standing well over 6 feet, Thomas has never been afraid to mix it up. He learned that from his father, Jesse, who he said taught him how to be a man, and his mother, Jewel, who taught him that he can do anything he set his mind to.
But Thomas admits that he was shaken by some of the events during the period of unrest on campus. One such incident was his discovery of a leaflet aimed at him. It described Thomas as “the hand of the white man’s violence supporting genocide and terrorism.”
“It made me feel bad,” Thomas said of the flyer. “Morehouse has never been a place that had a politic of dehumanization around difficult issues and even the attempts that were made here to create a dehumanization dynamic were rejected.”
Thomas told the students that if they really felt that way about him, they should call for a vote of no-confidence in him.
“If 51% of my students vote no-confidence in me, I can’t lead. I would leave on the spot,” Thomas said.
There was never a vote.
A giant step
Thomas said that he made it clear in the days leading to commencement that students would be able to protest silently if they weren’t disruptive.
On the morning of graduation, Morehouse class valedictorian DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher was the first to address the Israel-Hamas war from the stage.
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With a Palestinian flag affixed to his sash and his graduation cap, he called for “an immediate and permanent cease-fire, in the Gaza Strip.”
Biden stood and shook Fletcher’s hand.
Thomas, who said he didn’t know the context of Fletcher’s speech earlier, hugged him.
Thomas believes Biden’s visit is an example of Morehouse’s enduring influence and hopes that will continue.
“My goal for Morehouse is that we will have a greater impact on the 21st century than we had on the 20th century. You literally cannot write the history of this country in the 20th century without writing about Morehouse,” Thomas said. “My hope is that what happened here is one small step in Morehouse being a relevant voice in the shaping of the 21st century. And one giant step for the history of Morehouse.”
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