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COLLEGE PARK, Ga. – The woman behind the podium answered her own question immediately after she asked it to the room full of Spelman College soon-to-be graduates.
She said, “Could the day be any more glorious and could you be anymore beautiful?’” She answered, “I think not.”
Multi-time award-winning actress and director Angela Bassett, star of stage and screen, delivered the commencement speech during the 2024 Spelman College graduation exercises on Sunday afternoon in College Park. The exercises took place inside the Georgia International Convention Center.
Upon taking the stage to immense applause following an introduction by Spelman College President Dr. Helene D. Gayle, Bassett had the crowd in the palm of her hands. Her many messages to the graduating class of 2024 ranged from recounting her youth in St. Petersburg, Florida and the empowerment and high expectations for excellence that her mother had set for her and sisters to keeping your head high out in the world after you walk across the stage as a Spelman College graduate.
“There will be times when you may feel like the unnamed Black women, this is especially true when you come across people in your work place and in your community, and your own home, who may not see your full humanity and all of your glory. But it’s in those moments that I want you to remember who you are, raise your head and embody the queen that you have been prepared to be.”
A graduate of Yale University and the school’s School of Drama, Bassett made a point of emphasizing using the education that the graduates received at Spelman College, while also following their dreams. She told a story about seeing a play while in high school on a trip to Washington D.C., being moved and knowing at that moment that she wanted to make people feel the way she felt when she watched people perform the arts.
She would go on to begin her acting career at a local theater in her hometown, go on to Yale and when she told people she would be pursuing acting she recalled a not so positive response from some of them.
“I was supposed to go to law school, or become a scientist, or a doctor,” she said. “Anything but an artist.” During the early portions of her career she told the graduates, their families, and the Spelman faculty assembled in the room that she worked “odd jobs” in between acting auditions. The message: All of those little steps got her to where she is today.
“Every single opportunity matters,” she explained.
Bassett, a wife and mother who is preparing to begin the collegiate journey with her children, called Spelman College “the Mecca of Black excellence and Black womanhood. She even took a moment to compare it to a fictional country from one of the more popular movies she starred in.
“Spelman College is the higher education equivalent of Wakanda,” Bassett said to thundering applause. “This special place has prepared you for greatness” and “When the world tells you to be quiet, speak up.”
She closed her time on stage with, “Your tomorrow starts today.”
Bassett and Supreme Court Justice Dr. Kentaji Brown Jackson were awarded honorary degrees. Bassett received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree and Brown Jackson received Doctor of Laws. WABE personality and the host of “Closer Look” Rose Scott was also honored. She was awarded the National Community Service Award which is given by the Spelman College Board of Trustees.
The invocation was delivered by The Reverend Dr. Neichelle Guidry, Dean of Chapel at Spelman College. During the prayer Guidry spoke of the graduates being in this place at this time to honor God.
“We are gathered in this place at this appointed time to say thank you,” she said. “You have been present God.”
Guidry would also deliver the benediction before the recessional ended the exercises.
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Donnell Suggs
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