Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland, additionally received an honorary degree from the historically black college.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore encouraged Morehouse College’s graduating class of 2023 to celebrate their history during his guest commencement speech Sunday morning.
Moore, elected as the state’s first Black governor last fall, received an honorary doctorate from the HBCU on Sunday before addressing the 400-plus students, families and faculty members in attendance on the college’s Century Campus.
“Graduations are by nature, a celebration of the future. But I want to spend a minute just to talk a little bit about the past,” Moore began.
“Because while each of you worked very hard to get here, this degree is not a product of your hard work alone,” he added. “As a Black man in America, we know that our present is a result of the fights and the struggles and the victories of the past.”
Moore emphasized that each student stands on the shoulders of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin E. Mays, and countless other figures who made sacrifices for freedom knowing they may never experience the product of their struggle.
He added that knowing his history has helped guide him while pursuing a career as a Black lawmaker rising the ranks in the state of Maryland, which at one point was home to one of the nation’s largest slave ports, and was where the discriminatory housing practice of redlining originated.
“Maryland has a long and troubled history, absolutely. But Maryland also has a history of courage. A history of leaders and thinkers and writers and scholars, people who struggled but had the strength to overcome,” Moore said.
Moore referenced Maryland trailblazers including Reginald Lewis, the first Black man to build a multi-billion dollar company in US history, and Lillie May Jackson, who founded the Baltimore NAACP and is known as the mother of the civil rights movement.
“Men of Morehouse, I stand before you as the first Black governor of my state, and only the third Black governor ever to be elected in the history of this country with a very simple message: Our history is our power.”
He then challenged students to confront efforts to erase their history and the history of other marginalized groups amid statewide book bans and sweeping changes to curricula from conservative lawmakers.
“I can think of few greater threats to this nation than this threat to history. Because this threat is going to have lasting consequences. Not only because those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but because those who do not learn their past will never learn their own power,” Moore said.
“So practice your history. Protect your history. And participate in your history by making history of your own. I am calling on you to recognize the power of your history and to use it for the betterment of all of our mankind.”
Additional honorary doctorate awardees during Sunday’s commencement included Roderic I. Prttigrew, a Morehouse College class of 1972 graduate whose research in cardiovascular imaging and advocacy for diversity in the medical field has been recognized globally.
An honorary doctorate was awarded posthumously to late NBA legend Bill Russell, who won 11 championships with the Boston Celtics and used his platform to speak out against racial discrimination during the 1950s and 1960s. He died at 88 in July 2022.
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