Tougaloo College Commencement Speech - May 4, 2025

Good morning! Now, I’m not going try to hold y’all and I’m about to get real for two seconds. Just gimme two seconds. First of all, I want to say thank you President Lee so much for the honor of speaking, I hope you don’t regret it. I also must say thank you to the Board of Trustees for having me here as your keynote speaker. Thank you to the distinguished faculty and staff for all that you’ve done and continue doing support into the talented scholars sitting before us today.

Thank you, president emerita, Dr. Beverly Wade Hogan, who has knocked down many doors and shattered ceilings in her own right. Thank you for never relenting in the face of trying times and rising to every challenge with focus and sheer will. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To my friend and colleague, a distinguished alumnus and trustee emeritus, Benny Thompson, thank you for staying in the fight, never letting up, never slowing down. If can’t stop won’t stop was a person, it would be Congressman Benny Thompson.

I also must say thank you so much to Derrick Johnson, the CEO of the NAACP. Thank you for being, yes. [Applause] Thank you for being Tougaloo-rooted and on the forefront of the modern-day civil rights fight that we find ourselves in. And as a point of personal privilege, let me just say thank you to the baddest woman walking on this planet that serves on your board, Madam Secretary Marcia Fudge. I hope y’all caught that baddest, that was for the soras [sororities], where the soras [sororities] at? Okay, there we go, there we go, there we go. Hope y’all caught that. Alright. Thank you for always being available and taking my calls, no matter what hour I call, to give me hope and guidance.

Now, before I get to the graduates, let me just say, where all the mamas and daddies at? Grannies, papaws, titis, yes. I know when they walked, y’all were like these are our degrees. Amen. I understand. Thank you so much for supporting these graduates along this journey.

Now, onto our graduates. Congratulations. You made it to this day that sometimes felt like it would never come. But today is that day. The last few years flew by faster than you knew it. When you walk across this stage today, know that you are joining a select, exclusive, and accomplished legacy of Tougaloo alumni. My fifty-year graduates is about this life, I hear it. When you accept that degree today, know that it is so much and everything but just a piece of paper. You are receiving a responsibility, you are accepting a calling, you are agreeing to pursue a purpose one larger than you. A weight just heavy enough for you to bear because after all, you made it through Tougaloo.

Now, I never know where I’m going to go when I am supposed to do a speech, and I truly need to get my life together because despite what most people think about those of us in Congress, I’m like a freshman of all politics. We don’t get stylists, an army of protectors, travelling makeup artists, speechwriters, and well, the list goes on. So I often times have to let my staff start a speech and then I either put some stank on it, or I completely go off the dome. When Congressman Thompson basically voluntold me that I was gonna do this, I was like bruh. When do I have time to write the fire speech that these young people deserve? The speech that will provide the spark for those that are just like, I am a thank you lottie outta here, ignite the fire that is ready to be lit, but is still a little unsure of itself, and for others, set their flames ablaze so that they are lighting everything around them on fire, too.

Now, again, sir, when was I gonna find time for that? The answer is, sadly, I didn’t. I didn’t have time to pull together the level of inspiration that I believe this momentous occasion in this disastrous time calls for. It is hard to truly conceptualize what could truly meet this exact intersection in history and be good enough. I went through all the thoughts of what would Shirley Chisholm, or Barbara Jordan, or Michelle or Barack say? Honestly, what can you say nowadays? And well, I did like any good PK would do. I thought about God and church.

for today’s words, it would be the song, I Feel No Ways Tired. I find myself often times repeating the words of this song as I am pushing myself beyond my self-appointed limit. Turn to your neighbor and say, “I feel no ways tired.” Okay, now do it again and mean it. Okay. Now let me tell y’all, I am tired. But we gon’ get into it.

Raise your hands if the major you started with is the same major you ultimately graduated with. Okay, a couple of y’all. And then there are those of y’all that I am definitely in good company with. You see, life in general is full of unknowns and your matriculation through this esteemed institution is your confirmation that you can tackle the many unknowns that will surely come your way. The question is, how did you do it? I truly believe the saying that people use all the time, in fact, we heard it earlier today, “we are truly our ancestors’ wildest dreams.” But more so, I believe that we know our history and it lights our path. There are days that I sit back and I think, wow. I am sitting in the same committee rooms as Elijah Cummings and John Lewis. So many other giants sat in these very same rooms. How many times did you sit back and think about the fact that you walked the same hollowed grounds where the Tougaloo Nine organized? For years, you sat in the same seats as Anne Moody and Memphis Norman as you were bestowed with knowledge, skills, and critical thought.

Sadly enough, in the year of our lord 2025, sitting in these very classrooms is just as much of a protest as Anne and Memphis pulling up to Woolworth’s in 1963. It’s the paradox and parallels for me. We are currently standing upon more than 500 acres of sanctuary and a launchpad for the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. A training ground that birthed civil rights warriors with pins, prayers, and protest signs. A training ground that birthed me, as I stand before you. They want to do everything they can to delete this sacrificial work and those born from it if not only just from the history books, but they want to delete the progress and the beneficiaries of said work from their present ranks. As I stand here in this safe space, still only one of the few places that an institution can invite me to speak. Okay, so that went over some of y’all’s heads. But my fifty-year grads understood what I was putting down.

To think about the fact that people have to be fearful of having a sitting member of Congress to come and address their graduates tells us that we still got a lotta work to do. The president of the United States having a temper tantrum that strips funding because I’m black and I’m proud should not be something that we are dealing with in 2025.

The reality is that this harkens back to a man named Martin. It harkens back to a man named Martin that decided that he wanted to go out and educate and invigorate during the Civil Rights Movement. And it was here, at Tougaloo, that he could come and speak. In fact, it was the only institution in Mississippi that he could come and speak.

For me, it’s the paradox and the parallels. So why did I say that I was tired after telling y’all to say that you aren’t? Because I am. And frankly, it’s okay. As the song goes, “I just can’t give up now. I’ve come too far from where I’ve started from.” How many times did you want to give up on this journey? Okay, so now I’m hearing from the 2025 grads. Some of you may have had to step away and then step back in. Some of you probably worked multiple jobs, like I did when I was in college. I worked three jobs alone while I was in law school, so while the haters continuously spread lies about me and seek to limit the strength and reach of my voice, they know that they aren’t telling the full story. They know that they could care less to talk about the fact that while I was blessed to attend some institutions that are quite expensive, I was on scholarship, and my mama worked multiple jobs, as did I, all while excelling and rising to the challenges.

You see, the point I want to get off my chest is this. You’ve been through some things. Turn to your neighbor and say, “I been through some things.” Y’all felt that. I was once told by a prospective employer that what I majored in didn’t really matter. Earning my undergraduate degree for them was more about them recognizing that I could be disciplined and focused on a long-term task and see it through. Your struggle and scars evidence that you’ve been through battle. Now, being battle-tested, why should any of you ever doubt whatever the next obstacle is going to be before you? If and when fatigue starts to creep in, it is incumbent upon yourselves to repeat the refrain of the song, “I just can’t give up now, I’ve come too far from where I started from.”

So let’s talk about what’s next. The reason I said I was in good company is because I can for sure tell you that politics was never part of my plan. When I was sitting in my college graduation, I won’t tell y’all how many years ago and mind your business about my age. Sadly, I was trying to think of who spoke, and what they spoke about. And frankly, I have zero recollection. The only thing I can recall for sure is that I had no inkling or inspiration of becoming a congresswoman. Frankly, many days I wake up and I question that, too.

But nevertheless, life is about meeting the moment and perceiving your purpose. It is perfectly normal if you haven’t figured out your next steps. Your focus should be inward at this moment. You should take time to better understand yourself in this newly acquired alumni status. And evaluate where the pull is coming from, that tug on your heart that you feel, that breadcrumb of events that are leading you on your path to purpose.

Purpose will ground you when the distractions and doubters try to interrupt your path. The same distracters that came at Medgar over and over. And ultimately killed him, but they didn’t kill the movement. In fact, they only propelled it to the next level. It was his death in 1963 that was a major catalyst for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Your distracters will try to be dream-killers, but you have to be immoveable and unshakeable in your convictions.

When it gets hard, and it will, when times get dark and the road seems long and lonely, remember this: just one person can make all the difference. That one person can and will be you. Distracters may sound like, “wait your turn.” I can tell you that I hear that quite often. I can also tell you about the daily blows that I take and the hate that is consistently spewed at me, but the reality is that there is a song that goes, “haters get on your job. Haters get on your job.” Y’all know that sound? We’re also going through the soundtrack of my life.

Again, it’s the paradox and parallels for me. The work done by so many like Benny, Medgar, and Fanny Lou Hamer are under attack. And instead of publicly calling us the n-word, they use racist epithets and suggest that we’re ghetto or unqualified or diversity hires. Even though we’re all more, often times than not, more educated and qualified than they are. I have news for you. These attacks are not new because Jim Crow never died, he just lied in wait. They’ve always attacked Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, they’ve always attacked people in institutions who serve on behalf of black people, and it hasn’t always been overtly racist. Sometimes it’s building highways through communities, underfunding schools or as y’all know, neglecting to invest in infrastructure like water systems.

It's the paradox and parallels for me. As I’ve a chance to listen and learn from one of Tougaloo’s finest, Congressman Thompson, he should truly be an example for all of you. You see, he has been the epitome of “I just can’t give up now, I’ve come too far from where I started from.” He may have left Tougaloo, but believe me when I say, Tougaloo has never left him. He has appreciated what this institution has done for him and has and will continually return the favor to the place that made him Tougaloo tough.

So, life for me ain’t been no crystal stare. Nor will it be for you. But I dare you to dream. To do the impossible. You see, and Imma finish up. I got some more remarks, but I gotta do what I do, which is flow. The reason that I say that life for me ain’t never been no crystal stare because it’s the reality of what it is to be black in America. It is the reality that we have always faced as black people in America. But when people ask me, “why is it that you do this job?” It’s because I tap into the blood of the ancestors. And listen, I didn’t go to a HBCU for undergrad, so let me tell you, I didn’t get to sit in classrooms or sit on the ground where I know that there were plenty of people that had to plan to protect not only their present, but to protect their future.

And I am here to tell you that if you are waiting for somebody to come and save you, they are not coming to save you. You are the person that you have been waiting on. Listen, graduates. Every movement that we have ever had has been led by young people. I know that y’all look at me and y’all think that I’m young, but just know this: I am older than Medgar was when he was assassinated, I am older than Martin was when he was assassinated, I am older than Malcolm when he was when he was assassinated.

So if you think that I’m young, I’m here to tell you that y’all’s work is cut out for you. Because there’s so much that stands before you. And some will tell you that there a hill for you to climb, in fact, there is a poem that I often times like to refer to. It is by Amanda Gorman. And some states wanted to say that she couldn’t have her writings available, as well. And it goes, “for there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”

My charge to you is to understand that your moment is not in the future. Your moment is now. This country is relying on each and every one of you to walk into your purpose and to walk in greatness with your head held high. There are going to be people that tell you that you don’t belong and I am here to tell you over and over and over that you absolutely belong. There are people that are gonna tell you that there is not a table in which there is a seat for you, but I am here to remind you of Montgomery and those folding chairs. Let me tell you, that we know how to use a chair, whether we pulling it up or we doing something else with it.

Let me be the first one to tell you that I know that y’all are ready to put your boots on the ground. That’s your cue.