The Big Sea: President Obama and Morehouse College

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

President Obama and Morehouse College

One of my facebook friends posted an article that talked about how The President speaks to Black People.....

When I saw the article, I did not read it, but I felt compelled to read the President's speech in it's entirety. So, I read the President's speech, and I absolutely loved it. My favorite quote from the speech is a Morehouse creed that says “excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.”

What's wrong with a Black President telling Black Morehouse Men to "make no excuses," "not forget the underprivileged," "to be role models?" Didn't Dr. King, Shirley Chisholm, Frederick Douglas, Wilma Rudolph, Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes, and Booker T. Washington "make no excuses," "did not forget the underprivileged," and "were role models?"

I have seen the President in person several times, and I can not even explain the abundances of pride that I feel when I see this man. Growing older, I cry more than I use to, and every time that I see this man, I have to fight very hard to not go into the ugly cry. The reality of a man, with African blood running in his veins, running the most powerful country in the world, is a bit overwhelming to say the least.

This morning, I was listening to my inspirational music, and I thought about Black President Obama, standing before the many Black Morehouse College men and their families, and I almost went into a sob.

I was imagining the Black parents and grandparents of the graduates who I'm sure were honored to be in the same space with the President and to be able to say that he is one of their own. I thought about how Pridefully those graduates must have felt when their Black President did his famous, I'm cool walk, to offer them final words at Morehouse College. Yea, he has already served one term, but the novelty of President Obama has not worn off for me and a whole lot of other people.

I read that commencement speech, and I was reminded of my President's gift of being able to connect to his audience, and I know that when he delivered that speech, there were tears and smiles, because I know that many people in that audience could connect to it and were pleased with it.

People are entitled to their opinions about the President's speech at Morehouse College, but I loved it, and I want all of my Black nephews and nieces, and cousins, and my unborn children, to read it and be inspired......