(February 11, 2026 – Bowie, Maryland) Bowie State University opened its spring semester with a Black History Month convocation that paired celebration with a clear call to action: build the future by investing in one another. Students, faculty, alumni, and community guests filled the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center Auditorium for Spring Convocation under the theme “A Century of Black History Commemorations.” The milestone theme marks 100 years since the first organized national observance of Black history an initiative rooted in the work of scholar Carter G. Woodson and colleagues who founded what is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). In the convocation program, ASALH’s legacy is framed as both history and strategy: public commemorations helped reshape how Black people saw themselves and how the world saw them.
University President Dr. Aminta H. Breaux welcomed the campus into that tradition. A longtime advocate for student success and entrepreneurial thinking, Breaux has emphasized preparing graduates for a rapidly changing
workplace and community leadership. Her message set the tone for a morning designed to connect the power of memory with the urgency of now.
The featured keynote speaker, nationally recognized civil rights attorney Benjamin L. Crump, delivered that urgency with unmistakable force. Crump known for representing families in landmark civil rights cases and for using law as a tool for education and empowerment challenged Bowie State students to widen their definition of leadership beyond titles and moments of crisis.
In a short news package recapping the event, the keynote is described as a push toward an “Upstream Mentality” a way of thinking that asks people to be proactive, organized, and committed to saving future generations rather than only reacting after harm has already occurred. Crump urged students to see their education as preparation for that upstream work: strengthening institutions, protecting community health and safety, and building economic stability before problems become tragedies.
That theme resonated in the convocation materials distributed on campus, which highlighted Crump’s message in blunt, community-centered terms: “The future of Black people will not be determined by how white America treats, supports or invests in us. The future will be determined by how we treat, support and invest in each other.” The program also notes that Crump drew comparisons about how dollars circulate in Black communities versus others, pressing students to view economic choices as a form of civic power.
The morning’s program blended reflection and celebration. The service featured a monologue by Miss Bowie State University Andrea Newman, an introduction by Joshua Looper, and the choir’s hymn “Just Like Selma.” Musical selections included the enduring anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and student leaders from the Department of History and Government took key roles in presiding and closing the event.
For Bowie State, Maryland’s oldest historically Black university, the convocation served as a reminder that commemoration is not passive. It is a public practice of truth-telling that equips young people to “rise to the occasion,” as Attorney Crump challenged, and to carry Black history forward through action on campus, in careers, and back home and beyond.