A 1930 Lynching Sufferer Was Honored At Morehouse’s Commencement

[ad_1] by Daniel Johnson Could 26, 2025

Morehouse awarded a posthumous diploma to Dennis Hubert, a scholar lynched in 1930.

Morehouse School’s current graduation ceremony commemorated the lynching of Dennis Hubert in June 1930 by giving his nephew, Imam Plemon El-Amin, the honorary diploma that his uncle by no means bought the possibility to earn after he was murdered by a gaggle of white males on the playground of one in every of Atlanta’s segregated colleges.

In accordance with CNN, Hubert was 18 on the time of his lynching and in his sophomore 12 months at Morehouse, the place he was learning divinity. On the graduation ceremony, Morehouse’s president, David Thomas, referred to as Hubert a “son of Morehouse, a martyr of justice, and what historical past now sees because the Trayvon Martin of the Thirties in Atlanta.”

The 75-year-old El-Amin, whose household has an extended reference to the Atlanta College Middle, or AUC, was appreciative of the ceremony; a number of members of his household have gradated both from Morehouse School or its sister college, Spelman School, which like Morehouse, is mono-gender.

“Many prayers had been stated in his identify,” El-Amin stated concerning the ceremony, which he instructed CNN reminded him of an Islamic saying that individuals solely go away behind their charity, data, and relations who pray for them after they die. “Many individuals remembered him and had been knowledgeable about his life and his legacy, and so the data was there, in addition to the charity of him sacrificing his life in order that we might be extra aware of the worth of younger life and the worth of human life, but in addition the worth of justice.”

El-Amin continued, additional contextualizing the homicide of Hubert, “For one in every of their promising youngsters, who (was) a rising sophomore on the Morehouse School to be murdered simply in chilly blood…at the moment, 1930, is saying that there (had been) no human rights given to the (Black) folks of Georgia.”

Bryan Stevenson, the chief director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a corporation devoted to honoring the recollections of Black individuals who had been lynched, applauded Morehouse’s choice to honor Hubert.

“Once we start to handle this historical past, after we start to attempt to create treatments for the hurt and struggling that terror violence and lynching violence created, I believe we lay a path down that can assist us transfer ahead, which is why I used to be so happy that Morehouse determined to award a level posthumously to Dennis Hubert,” Stevenson instructed CNN.

The tragedy of Hubert’s homicide was compounded by the truth that there has not been a lot consciousness about his story, and Morehouse’s alumni, like Sean Jones, a 1998 graduate of the college, pressed the college to each formally acknowledge Hubert and inform his story to each present college students and alumni.

“It’s private, it’s painful, and…oftentimes it’s a scary factor, as a result of some individuals have nightmares about it as soon as they hear this sort of historical past,” Jones instructed CNN. “However it's one thing that have to be mentioned, have to be highlighted.”

Stevenson agreed, noting that you will need to spotlight such tales “when there’s such a hostility in some areas to studying the historical past of battle and violence towards Black folks.”

El-Amin additionally famous the political local weather, after noting that holding his uncle’s story alive additionally means holding him alive.

“Ninety-five years later, persons are aware of his life, which implies he’s nonetheless alive, although not right here with us bodily or in physique, however his life, his will, and he's offering inspiration for these of us left behind,” El-Amin additionally cautioned in his feedback to CNN that, “We will see that these very, very horrible instances will not be that far-off and might simply come again.”