It seemed like something right out of a movie. By the early 2000s, his senior year in high school, Yashua Simmons's mother had taken him with her to Howard University in Washington, D.C. He said, “There was a Black girl with short hair. She reminded me of my sister.” He saw her dashing right across the street, denim pencil skirt, white t-shirt with short sleeves and D&G labelled on the pocket of her skirt, through a group of students. Gripping his mother’s arm he said, “I’m going to this school.” Simmons chuckles now at the memory of it all. “Sounds superficial.” It really isn’t though. It woman he abstracted from the glamour magazines to symbolize what he wanted to do and become in the world of fashion. Dynamic movement and stunning style – just what for many is the signification of Howard: a realm of potential and extraordinary breathtaking beauty.
Twenty years after the winter of 2024, Simmons felt impressed with the many protests and student activism that were happening around the nation. He has developed a plan by which he can pay tribute to these “front liners” students in the world-famous homecoming at his old school, which turned a hundred the previous year. Things began to fall into place: The career model Anok Yai, the fraternity brother who stepped in to take over after Simmons messed it up, had his career take off following the viral reaction to a photo taken at Howard homecoming 2017. “She’s coming home,” states Simmons. “She’s coming home for me. It’s a hundred-year homecoming.” And from there, it picked up stream.
It all translates into a set of pictures given to the esteem of Howard University. Founded in 1867 at the time of the post-Civil War boom of freedom, Howard University is known unofficially as “the Mecca” for any student or alumnus to that closely relates to almost every major post-Civil War, and by extension, American history’s event belongs to Howard. Here, President Lyndon B. Johnson revealed his Votin’ g Rights Act and affirmative action intention in 1965. Here, revolutionaries such as Stokely Carmichael burdened the American experiment with their commitment to equal access for all persons. In the 1920s, Alain Locke was presiding over the department where philosophic vision was possible; he defined the shape and scope of the Harlem Renaissance that cultural reflowering of American arts still respected today. Notable alumni include Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Chadwick Boseman, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who selected Howard as the location to observe election night in 2024.
“We really value school spirit and unity on the campus,” said Glory Edim, an alumna of 2006, founder of the Well-Read Black Girl literary community and podcast. “Howard asks one of those inquiring environments; it’s an environment that fosters creativity with the kind of culturing of ambition to step into leadership. One of my favorite things to do is research how former members of Howard’s student government are doing and most times, they are doing remarkable things in the world; if they gathered the courage to participate in student politics at Howard, they are making it. And you learn that success isn’t only an individual’s personal gain; it is our commitment to uplift and support others as you move further in your career. You come to realize you’re building upon the legacy of … all these extraordinary figures.
Spirit of fashion is evident in the attire observed at Howard, something the community takes great pride in. For instance, Brittany N. Williams, an actress and writer in the class of 2007, laughs, “Once the weather turned warm? That was it. The outfits were incredible, fabulous, and stunning. You could sit on the Yard and observe people strolling along the pathways that intersected the Yard as if it were a runway.”
Where Edim has Howard, in other words, as a location where students would ‘’reclaim narratives’’ and ‘’have a space to be unapologetic,’’ as Simmons puts it. “One of the things about Black folks is the pride in presentation: hair, nails, designer clothes, color combinations.” Then he added, “While we may label it as fashion I believe it truly reflects self-pride and the manner in which we express and represent ourselves.”
Howard enters people’s lives at crucial moments of youth, when one has learned enough to be aware of the self but is still uncertain of what one may become. Audre Lorde famously said, ‘‘If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.’’ And nowhere is this more real for me than with Howard-like places. They are places that nurture the future by giving room to as yet incomprehensible innovations that could really transform.
She was to spend just two years of the 1950s as a student at Howard in Washington but the experience was to return to her imagination again and again. I remember when he got there by bus in D.C.’s Union Station, together with a fellow student named Betty. I remember he said his feelings were of being lost, the size of the city overwhelming given his upbringing been in Buffalo, New York. He adds that quite some distance from the bus a man approached them through the campus who identified himself as being a 3rd-year student. Glancing first at Betty's college attire and name tag, he grinned and complimented her saying, “You’ll love it here, and we’ll love you.” Then he looked directly at me and asked if I was Betty's mother. How could I fit there then? Two years. There were two years only... Clifton’s memoir, like much of her poetry, is quietly enlivened by a subtly understated humor: ‘But what a two years it was! What a time!’ Back when at Howard if you weren’t light-skinned or didn’t have long hair, you had to have something pretty phenomenal. I studied drama in New York. For those who did not know, Buffalo is quite far from New York City. But for those in the know, I could also mention Canada, so it all worked out all right.
