Before I came to Morehouse, I didn’t realize how much of myself I had been shrinking. I grew up used to being one of few Black students in certain classes. Nobody ever actually said I didn’t belong (at least not directly to my face). But belonging is not always about what people say, it is about what you feel. It is about whether you can breathe normally without your heart beating fast, and whether you can just be yourself without constantly checking yourself.
I learned early how to be quiet in ways that went beyond personality. I paid attention to how I spoke, making sure my words sounded “right.” I also paid attention to how I reacted to things to make sure other people felt comfortable around me. I didn’t ever want to seem too mad, even when I truly WAS upset. I paid attention to how I dressed and carried myself, and even how loud I laughed. It was not something anyone taught me in a formal lesson. It was something I learned to do based on the way people (teachers, peers, strangers) reacted to me.
Being Black in many spaces means being aware. Aware of things like stereotypes and assumptions. Aware that sometimes people are actually surprised by my intelligence or my calmness and kindness, as if those things are not been expected from Black men.
I did not always have the words for that feeling. Sometimes I still don’t, to be honest. I just knew that I was careful. Sometimes I still am to be honest. Coming to Morehouse changed a lot of that. The first time I walked across campus, I noticed something immediately. I saw Black men everywhere, and not just in one way. I noticed. I saw that we are athletes walking with headphones around their necks not being suspected of doing something wrong. I saw that we are students sitting outside reading thick books and arguing about politics and philosophy and making classes last longer than they need to be. On that first day I saw that we are young men who can freely laugh loudly and not apologize for it. I see my brothers, the future doctors, future lawyers, future teachers, future leaders, and we all look like me in some way.
For the first time, I was not representing anything. I was just existing. In my classes, professors speak about Black history not as a side note or a lesson reserved for February but as a central story. They teach us about thinkers, innovators, and leaders whose names I’ve never heard before. They teach us about possibility, responsibility, and legacy. They never speak as if success is surprising. They speak and behave toward us as if it is expected. That expectation feels different. It doesn’t feel like pressure. It feels like someone who is responsible for teaching me actually believe in me that I can be great.
On that first day walking the campus I was excited to be on my own, but I realized how much energy I had spent before managing perception. At Morehouse, my energy can finally go somewhere else. It can go into learning. It can go into growing and imagining my future in real terms not hypothetical ones.
What I want the world to understand is that being Black is not one story. It is not only struggle, even struggle clearly exists. It is not only resilience, even though we are somehow required to be resilient. It is also joyous! Being black is humor that fills a campus and creativity within its walls. Being black is a community that forms instantly on your first day on campus between your brothers and your Spelman sisters, even between strangers. It is our shared history that stretches far beyond what is taught in textbooks.
Being Black means carrying the past generations with you without realizing it. It means understanding that your presence in certain spaces was not always guaranteed. It means knowing that people before you sacrificed so that you could sit in classrooms, walk across campuses relaxed and without the energy of managing other people’s perceptions, and dream without limitation.
It also means being human in ordinary regular ways.
Being Black means worrying about exams and deadlines just like other students. It means normal things like calling home when you miss your family and figuring out who you are when nobody from your past is there to define you. Being Black is also the fun stuff like laughing with friends 3am in the dorm while we eat our ramen and hot dogs because no one else has money for a door dash. Being Black means that we manage these ordinary regular things in the same ways that other college students do, but with the constant reminder that your identity outside of your safe space is always being judged.
Being Black at Morehouse has not changed who I am. It has allowed me to see who I have always been, without the distorted views of the world. Now when I walk my campus, I have a different posture. Not because I have something to prove, but because I understand that I can relax because I do not have to prove anything to belong here.
What I want the world to understand is that being Black is not a limitation. It is not something that needs to be explained away or softened or watered down to make others comfortable. It is an identity shaped by our history and strengthened by the communities we choose to join and create.
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Featured image/photo courtesy of Freepik.