Roxbury Community College supporters turned out to celebrate the institution’s 50th year at its Golden Jubilee Gala on Saturday night, with the night’s honoree Anita Hill and others reflecting on the institution’s vital history of and current role in community activism.
“It is hard times that wake us up, reawaken us to what we must do to make sure that we do not surely fail, that we are not the generation that will be the ones to fail, that we will be the generation that will pass on to the next something better than what we have,” Hill said. “So I want you to know that about RCC, that is what RCC is doing — making sure the next generation has something better than the one before.”
Roxbury Community College (RCC) kicked off its 50th anniversary celebrations with three days of activities in May, closing out a long line of festivities with the gala Saturday.
The event at the Omni Boston Hotel featured speeches highlighting the college’s history and future from Interim President Jackie Jenkins-Scott, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, artists Napoleon Jones-Henderson and Stephen Hamilton, and RCC Board Chair Steven Tompkins, along with Hill.
The college, opened in a former car dealership in 1973 to just 400 students, has long been a cultural epicenter and hub a local activism in the Roxbury community.
Community activism allowed RCC to exist, Interim President Jackie Jenkins-Scott noted, refencing the local movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s that prevented an extension of Interstate 95 from running through the college’s current campus.
A banner hanging on the side of an RCC building highlights that chapter in the neighborhood’s history, reading “If it wasn’t for community activism, you’d be on a highway right now.”
Activists fought for the college’s existence again in 1980, when the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community Colleges proposed a merger with Bunker Hill Community College, according to RCC archives. Community members protested in the State House, the archives state, arguing for the importance of RCC to the neighborhood as the “only majority Black institution of higher education in Massachusetts” and “only fully bilingual program.”
Hill and Pressley both highlighted current threats to education, specifically targeted at Black history and communities, and emphasized the need for significant Predominately Black Institutions like RCC.
“Education is at the center of our challenges,” said Hill. “There are forces, and they are well -funded, who would like to remove our presence in higher education, who are fighting to do so. And they are not only removing our physical presence, they’re attempting to remove our knowledge from campuses of colleges throughout the country.”
The RCC staff also used the gala to launch the new Center for Economic and Social Justice and unveil a new 40-pound installation created using copper sheets, woven and textile elements, and sculptural work for the campus done by Napoleon Jones-Henderson and Stephen Hamilton.
RCC is opening the Center for Economic and Social Justice in the David Dudley House, currently under renovation using energy efficiency and green standards. The center will provide students training on green tech and energy efficiency sectors.
“When we first talked about celebrating with you the legacy of work that’s being done, the people who walk through this institution, the work that will be done, people said that’s ambitious,” said Jenkins-Scott. “And our answer is if we don’t have great ambitions, we will never be all we can be.”
