Keynote Address at Howard University's 158th Opening Convocation
“I believe it is planting time. It doesn’t mean we don’t fight, it means we fight and we plant. Who knows what the harvest will yield when it springs forth.”
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Source text: Howard University’s The Dig
Howard University leaders opened the academic year Sept. 19 with its 158th Opening Convocation ceremony that acknowledged the weight of changing times. Convocation keynote speaker Sherrilyn Ifill, a Howard School of Law professor, cited the “heaviness in the land” but urged students to see the moment as time for democratic renewal.
“Those of us on this stage lived and benefited from the harvest of the Civil Rights Movement,” Ifill said. “But harvest is not forever; you have to plant too. And right now, I believe it is planting time. It doesn’t mean we don’t fight, it means we fight and we plant. Who knows what the harvest will yield when it springs forth.”
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