I was tired at the end of North Carolina Central University’s homecoming last month.
My line brothers and I had just celebrated our 35th year as members of Alpha Phi Alpha and we had been hosting our RV since about 8 a.m.
After we had cleaned up, I made my way across “the sloping hills and verdant greens,” of our beautiful campus to my frat brother’s car.
Suddenly, for the second time that day, we heard gunfire.
My school, which had attracted thousands of her graduates back to campus on that crisp, sunny Saturday afternoon, had become part of a growing and disturbing trend of gun violence that is threatening to change the nature of Black colleges’ most sacred institution — homecoming.
Last weekend, it happened at Tuskegee University, the school made famous by its founding principal, Booker T. Washington, and its groundbreaking scientist, George Washington Carver. One man was killed and at least 16 others were hurt when a man using a machine gun launched a hail of bullets through a homecoming crowd.