Morehouse Graduates Brace, Anxiously, For Biden Visit
ATLANTA, Georgia — In the hours before President Joe Biden was scheduled to arrive at the storied Morehouse College, there was little indication on the campus that a raucous audience awaited his commencement address.
On a warm but overcast day, students posed for graduation photos in their regalia, packed their rooms and swung by the bookstore for one last school T-shirt before leaving campus. There was a sense of normalcy at the historically Black, all-male college — a far cry from the tense environments that materialized at other campuses throughout the spring, where pro-Palestinian protests perplexed administrations and sparked intense, even violent confrontations.
Morehouse on Saturday didn’t have that. What it did have was lingering anxiety among graduating seniors about how their commencement ceremony might be impacted by those who may want to use the opportunity of Biden’s presence to make a political point or create a scene.
“It’s been very tense,” said Porter Alexander Tynes III, a Morehouse senior from Memphis, Tennessee. “If protests happen, I pray that they happen peacefully.”
Since Morehouse announced last month that Biden would be its 2024 commencement speaker, questions about how to handle the president’s visit have gripped the campus. Morehouse students are acutely aware that when they step foot on the Century Campus quadrangle on Sunday morning to receive their diploma, they will be under the national spotlight — judged and observed for how they do or do not interact with the president, who has come under fire for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
That pressure has led to a strange last few weeks of campus life — with graduation parties and end-of-the-year festivities weighed down by debates about how best to approach the president’s visit. As students around the country have expressed fierce opposition to Biden’s Israel policies, some Morehouse students have questioned whether they have a responsibility to use the event to make that dissatisfaction known — either by boycotting or disrupting his speech. Others are hesitant to let their complicated feelings about the Biden administration overshadow such a meaningful milestone in their lives.
“It puts more eyes on us,” said Bryant Bean, a 2024 graduate. “They’re coming here and saying ‘What are the Black men going to do?’”
“If no one protests, there’s going to be people out there that say ‘y’all sold out, you just wanted to kiss up to the president.’ But if you do, you’re ruining graduation. So it’s a Catch-22.”
Morehouse College President David A. Thomas made clear in the week leading up to commencement that he would shut down the ceremony if there were major disruptions when Biden speaks. And students here said that the possibility of not being able to walk across the stage sat heavy with the graduating class, many of whom did not get a traditional high school graduation ceremony in 2020 due to the pandemic.
“People don’t want this to be canceled. There are different ways we can stand up,” said 2024 Morehouse graduate Gideon Ndeh, suggesting that those who wish to send a message to the president turn their back to him, similar to what some Howard University students last year did when Biden delivered their commencement address.
Students said that if they had been given the option to pick the commencement speaker, they probably would not have extended an invitation to Biden. Given that it is an election year, some said it was impossible to not feel like a political set piece in the president’s reelection bid. Others urged Biden to stay away from talking about the conflict in the Middle East or making a clear political pitch to Black voters.
“It’s a little unfair that graduating isn’t the centerpiece. There’s doctors, lawyers [graduating] — and we’re talking about the commencement speaker,” said David Johnson, who planned to attend the Sunday ceremony to watch a family member graduate.
Although there were not yet visible signs of the pro-Palestinian protests that tend to accompany the president wherever he goes, Biden’s imminent arrival was already being felt on campus Saturday afternoon.
As students made their way to the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel for their baccalaureate service, they griped about having to get up early the next morning to allow enough time to get through security checks. Parents tried to find creative angles to snap pictures of their graduates that didn’t capture the metal security fencing that was put up overnight. And no one was pleased that each graduate only got a limited number of commencement tickets this year.
But amid all the uncertainty that Biden’s visit had brought to the close of the class of 2024’s college career, there was a more ordinary worry on everyone’s mind.
“I just hope it doesn’t rain,” Ndeh said, as he peered up at dark storm clouds rolling in.
