HBCUs Alumni who have stood up and stood out!

1st February 2021 · 0 Comments

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series focusing on some of the country’s iconic graduates of HBCUs and their accomplishments.

Many of America’s politicians were also stand-up men and women at colleges and universities such as Spelman, Howard, Tuskegee and 101 others, long before they entered the public eye.

In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a proud graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, shared her thoughts about the value of an HBCU education:

“HBCUs have prepared and continue to prepare generations of change-makers and leaders. I believe there is value in knowing that you are truly amongst your peers, you are not a token. While it is often we may be the only person in the room who looks like us, we are never alone. And not only are you never alone, you are cognizant of those who have gone before you and the great legacy they have left behind.

“From the second you walk through the door, there are higher expectations of you. You are pushed harder, and constantly built up to know that you can achieve. There was a feeling of being connected to something larger than oneself, and there was drive and focus to do well, not just for you but for those who came before us and those who would come after us.

“Not only are HBCUs educating hundreds of thousands of students, but they are also opening the doors for economic opportunities and narrowing the racial wealth gap. For generations, HBCUs have shown us that ‘a mind is a terrible thing to waste,’ but a wonderful thing to invest in.”

Cantrell contended that at HBCUs, students feel equal from the start. “You do not have to prove anything because of your race; you are already worthy, right along with everyone else. Because of that, the rich experiences students receive at HBCUs pave the way for the next wave of technology innovators, policymakers and industry leaders that reflect the population they serve,” Cantrell said.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, HBCUs have educated 75 percent of all Black people holding doctorate degrees, 75 percent of all Black officers in the armed forces and 80 percent of all Black federal judges.

Here are just some notable political alumni from HBCUs, what they’ve accomplished, and more.

Kamala Harris – Howard University

Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States. She is the United States’ first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, and the first African-American and first Asian-American vice president. Prior to serving as a U.S. senator, Harris was elected attorney general for the state of California and district attorney of San Francisco, where she started a program that gives first-time drug offenders the chance to earn a high school diploma and find employment. (As a member of the U.S. Senate, Harris became the second African-American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the Senate.)

The Reverend Andrew Young – Howard University

The Rev. Young, a New Orleans native, was a pastor, civil rights leader, U.N. Ambassador, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and two-term Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Young was an SCLC member who worked closely with the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse graduate, on various civil rights campaigns.

Ernest N. Morial – Xavier University of New Orleans

Ernest Nathan “Dutch” Morial was a civil rights activist, lawyer, judge and political pioneer whose career included many firsts for an African American in Louisiana, including being the first Black Juvenile Court judge in Louisiana and the first Black elected to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal. Foremost among his series of firsts was his election as the first Black mayor of New Orleans in 1977, a position he held for two terms through 1986.

LaToya Cantrell – Xavier University of New Orleans

LaToya Cantrell is an American politician serving as the Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, a post she has held since May 7, 2018. Cantrell, a Democrat, is the first Black woman to hold the post. Before becoming mayor, Cantrell represented District B on the New Orleans City Council from 2012–2018.

Barbara Jordan – Texas Southern University

Barbara Charline Jordan was an American lawyer, educator and politician who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. A Democrat, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. Jordan was best known for her eloquent opening statement at the House Judiciary Committee hearings during the impeachment process against Richard Nixon, and as the first African American as well as the first woman to deliver a keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.

David N. Dinkins – Howard University

David Norman Dinkins was an American politician, lawyer and author who served as the 106th mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, becoming the first and only African American to hold the office. Before entering politics, Dinkins was among the more than 20,000 Montford Point Marines, serving from 1945 to 1946.

Douglas Wilder – Howard University School of Law, Howard University, Virginia Union University

Lawrence Douglas Wilder is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He was the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since the Reconstruction era, and the first elected African-American governor. Prior to serving as governor, Wilder won election to the Virginia Senate in 1969, where he remained until 1986, when he took office as the lieutenant governor of Virginia, becoming the first African American to hold statewide office in Virginia. Wilder returned to elected office in 2005, when he became the first directly-elected mayor of Richmond. After leaving office in 2009, he worked as an adjunct professor and founded the United States National Slavery Museum.

PBS Pinchback – Dillard University, Straight College Law School

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback was the first African American to ever become a governor in the United States, serving Louisiana briefly from Dec. 9, 1872 until Jan. 13, 1873, while the former governor was being impeached. Prior to serving as governor, Pinchback won election to the Louisiana State Senate in 1868 and became the president pro tempore. He went on to serve as a delegate to the 1879 Louisiana Constitutional Convention, where he gained support for the founding of Southern University. He became the acting lieutenant governor of Louisiana in 1871. Pinchback was elected to the U.S. Senate but his seat was refused because of racism. In 1887, at the age of 50, he enrolled in the Straight College Law School, graduating in 1889.

John Lewis – American Baptist Theological Seminary, Fisk University

John Robert Lewis was an American minister, politician, statesman and civil rights activist and leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. In 1988, the year after he was sworn into Congress, Lewis introduced a bill to create a national African-American museum in Washington. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016. Lewis was one of the 13 original Freedom Riders and chairman of the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC). At 23, he was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington. Lewis made an annual pilgrimage to Alabama to retrace the route he marched in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, a march that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. He also helped four million people register to vote as the director of the Voter Education Project.

James Clyburn – South Carolina State University

James Enos Clyburn is an American politician and a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina. He has served as House majority whip since 2019. Clyburn has served as U.S. Representative for South Carolina’s 6th congressional district since 1993. He played a pivotal role in securing the Democratic nomination for President Joe Biden.

Maynard H. Jackson Jr. – Morehouse College and North Carolina Central University

Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. was an American politician and attorney from Georgia. He was admitted early to Morehouse College and graduated in 1956 at age 18. Jackson was elected in 1973 at the age of 35 as the first Black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, and of any major city in the South. He served three terms. Jackson is most noted for the public works projects, primarily the new Maynard H. Jackson International terminal at the Atlanta airport. Jackson greatly increased minority business participation, grew the city’s middle class and increased the number of Black millionaires in Georgia.

Herman Cain – Morehouse College

The former presidential candidate and businessman’s political career took off when he served as an economic advisor for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign. One of the most popular presidential candidates from the Republican Party, Cain once polled just ahead of then-senator Barack Obama.

Kwesi Mfume – Morgan State University

Kweisi Mfume is an American politician who is the U.S. Representative for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District, first serving from 1987 to 1996 and again since 2020, when the seat was vacated upon the death of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings – Howard University.

Bernette Joshua Johnson – Spelman College

Bernette Joshua Johnson is a democratic lawyer from New Orleans, Louisiana, who served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 2013 to 2020. She is the first African American to serve in this position. Johnson previously worked for the New Orleans City Attorney’s office. She also worked in the 1960s as a community organizer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York City and as a legal services attorney for the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation.

Stacey Y. Abrams – Spelman College

Stacey Yvonne Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 and as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. Abrams, a Democrat, was the first African-American female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States After losing to Brian Kemp, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action to address voter suppression. In February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union Address. She also has been credited with increasing voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden won the state, and in Georgia’s 2020–21 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate.

Letitia A. James – Howard University Law School

Letitia Ann “Tish” James is an American lawyer, activist and politician. She is the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York and the first woman to be elected attorney general. In 2013, James was elected public advocate for the City of New York and became the first woman of color to hold citywide office. Before that, Tish James represented the 35th Council District in Brooklyn in the New York City Council for ten years and served as head of the Brooklyn regional office of the New York State Attorney General’s Office. James began her career as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society.

Thurgood Marshall – Lincoln University and Howard University’s School of Law

The late Thurgood Marshall made history as America’s first African-American U.S. Supreme Court justice. After graduating from Howard University’s Law School, Marshall dedicated his life to seeking justice and equality for those who were heavily discriminated against in the 1930s. He later founded the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and fought popular discrimination cases. In 1954, Marshall won the case that abolished legal apartheid in the United States – Brown v. Board of Education. After serving on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1967 to 1991, Marshall’s life was the subject of “Marshall,” a dramatic film. The late actor Chadwick Boseman, a Howard University alumnus, portrayed Marshall in the courtroom thriller.

Keisha Lance Bottoms – Florida A&M University

Keisha Lance Bottoms is an American politician and lawyer who is the 60th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. She was elected mayor in 2017. Before becoming mayor, she was a member of the Atlanta City Council, representing part of Southwest Atlanta.

Bakari Sellers – Morehouse College

Bakari T. Sellers is an American attorney, political commentator and politician. Sellers represented South Carolina’s 90th district in the lower house of the state legislature from 2006 to 2014, becoming the youngest African American elected official in the country at age 22.

Reverend Raphael Warnock – Morehouse College

Raphael Gamaliel Warnock is an American pastor and politician who was elected United States senator from Georgia in 2021. He and fellow U.S. Senator John Ossoff flipped the red state of Georgia blue and gave control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats.

Marilyn Mosby – Tuskegee University

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby decided to practice law after the murder of her 17-year-old cousin, who was mistakenly identified as a drug dealer by another teenager. Mosby made national news when she decided to charge six police officers for the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.

Roland Burris – Howard University

Roland Burris was the first African American elected to statewide office in Illinois, as comptroller and, later, as state attorney. Burris was appointed to the U.S. Senate position after Barack Obama was elected president in 2009. The lawyer has always fought against segregation. In the 1950s, Burris participated in a drive to integrate a local community pool. At just 15 years old, Burris was the first of four African Americans to use the facility.

Alexis Herman – Xavier University of Louisiana

Alexis Margaret Herman served as the 23rd U.S. secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Herman was the first African American to hold the position. Prior to serving as secretary, she was assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Prior to becoming labor secretary, Herman was the director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau under President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Alexis Herman has been a director of the Coca-Cola Company since 2007. Herman is also chair and CEO of New Ventures LLC, a corporate consulting company.

Mandela Barnes – Alabama A&M University

Jesse Mandela Barnes has served as the 45th lieutenant governor of Wisconsin since 2019. He is the first African American elected lt. gov. in Wisconsin. Barnes is a former state representative. While in state office Barnes authored legislation, including education, criminal justice, prison, juvenile justice reforms and gun control measures. Barnes attended Alabama A&M University from 2003-08. He made national news in 2020 when he spoke out about the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man in Kenosha Wisconsin. Barnes, who served as vice-chair of both the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee and host committee, is considered a potential candidate in the 2022 Senate election in Wisconsin.

The Rev. Dr. Luke E. Torian – Howard University, Virginia Union University, and Winston-Salem State University

Luke Torin has served in the Virginia House of Delegates since 2010. He represents the 52nd district in the Prince William County suburbs of Washington, D.C. In 2019, Torian has introduced and passed House bills on a variety of issues, from expediting the screening process for community-based and institutional long-term care services to extending the benefits of the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program to the spouse or child of a veteran with at least a 90 percent permanent, service-related disability. He is the pastor of First Mount Zion Baptist Church in Dumfries, a town in Prince William County.

Cedric L. Richmond – Morehouse College

Cedric Levan Richmond is an American lawyer and politician serving as a senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District from 2011 to 2021.