Last year, a shooting occurred at an unofficial homecoming party in front of the Morgan State student center, and the year before, a student was injured after being shot on campus. Other schools, including Clark Atlanta University and Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, also saw shootings on campus around homecoming festivities.
About six weeks ago shots also rang at Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida. In this case, the shooter was seen gearing up by alert students who notified campus police. The suspect fled the school grounds and eventually traveled a few blocks away to a Dollar General store and shot and killed Black people in a racist explosion.
“Our president, at our convocation this week, mentioned keeping Morgan State in our prayers, knowing that we had just gone through something that could have happened here a month ago,” said student Jordan Weeks. “It triggered those emotions and those traumatic feelings of uncertainty and fear,” she continued. “I know what the students at Morgan feel. It’s scary. It could have been our university and we could have been mourning the same way that they are.”
While classes were canceled in Morgan State the day after the shooting, the School of Global Journalism and Communications’ Board of Visitors met on campus. Garry D. Howard, a board member, said the school grounds were “serene. It was quiet.”
He said convening despite the shooting was symbolic of the strength of the school. “It is a smart decision, a cogent decision to cancel activities in light of authorities not having arrested those involved in the shooting,” Howard said. “But what I see in Morgan State is strength, from its leadership to its students. And while you can’t even quantify the importance of homecoming to an HBCU, it is clear that the president is putting the safety of the students, alumni and anyone associated with the school first.”
Tarek DeLavallade, a 1998 Morgan State graduate who has a nephew at the school, was going to miss homecoming because of a golf tournament he is hosting this weekend in Atlanta. He said he was not happy that homecoming was put off because of violence on campus, but he understood.
“Dr. Wilson is a thinker,” DeLavallade said. “And if he feels that this is the best thing, then it’s the best thing. And there’s loss of revenue with this decision. There are vendors. There are thousands of people who bought flights and booked hotels and everything else. However, there’s nothing more important than the safety of our alumni and students and anyone else who would be there.”
A major part of homecoming is the Saturday morning parade. Saresa Pleasant, who lives about a mile from the campus, said she was at Morgan State for a meeting a few days before the shooting. She said the neighboring community would feel the absence of not having homecoming.
“It’s just devastating that someone went onto that campus and injured those students,” Pleasant, a Baltimore native, said. “Homecoming is a time when we all come together,” she added. “The community should be able to celebrate an HBCU that’s producing great citizens. Many of us didn’t go there, but we feel a part of the school and we feel a part especially around homecoming. To not be able to do that this year — because of something so ugly — is devastating.”
