May is the month when we celebrate graduates across the educational spectrum. From kindergarten to graduate school, students will finish curricula and start their next educational journeys. For Black/African students in higher education, graduation can mean much more than earning a degree or certificate.
Convocation represents the accumulation of struggles endured and dreams deferred. Before Langston Hughes described dreams in poetry and King shared his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Black people pushed against the barriers to learn. Consider current challenges with Black Studies departments in Florida, Texas, and Kentucky and it’s feasible to ascertain a nuance of the opposition in higher education.
Racism impacts curriculum, access, and the quality of instruction in schools. In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education case mandated school desegregation, but segregation continued. Asson and her coauthors’ (2026) research indicates that race and class remain factors in determining school attendance zone boundaries in Maryland.
Graduates of African descent must persevere despite structural attempts to impede their success. Under resourced schools, irrelevant curriculum, and racially biased disciplinarian policies influence self-concept. Some students leave schools with degrees but lose themselves.
We must serve as jegnas or mentors to guide graduates toward cultivating optimal psychological well-being.
As Myers noted in 2013, optimal psychology includes comprehensive self-awareness with an acknowledgment of a Divine connection to Ancestors and nature. Students may leave our classrooms, but we can encourage self-knowledge by continuing relationships and sharing resources that enrich the lives of students after graduation.
The Umoja Community Education Foundation provides African-centered services, courses, and programs to support Black academic and cultural success. Students learn about their history through classes, services, and events. The foundation creates village spaces on high school and college campuses to foster feelings of belonging and academic achievement.
Coordinators, counselors, administrators, and instructors align their work with Umoja’s Eighteen Practices. The Manifesting practice states, “Students should be able to put into practice what they’re learning in your class.” Instructors work alongside other campus personnel to support students in applying their classroom learning to community settings.
What students do after graduation to impact their selves and others is the most important test of their education.
Whether it is transferring from a community college to a university, starting a business, or building a movement, Umoja manifests student success by nurturing self-efficacy and encouraging the application of knowledge and skills.
Umoja, Kiswahili for unity, implies the foundation does not work alone. We work in coordination with schools, communities, policy makers, and other organizations.
It takes a village to manifest Black academic and cultural success.
The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) also collaborates with schools across the country to support diverse students in succeeding and acquiring socio-emotional learning skills. The ABPsi’s school district consultant team provides direct services to African diasporic students with mental health challenges, their teachers, and school administrators. We offer instructional coaching, lead workshops, and coordinate organizational assessments in 109 school districts.
Umoja and the ABPsi share African-centered frameworks for preparing Black students to thrive as collaborative leaders. Umoja’s approaches are captured in the aforementioned eighteen practices, which include manifesting that students will reproduce classroom learning experiences among African diasporic communities. ABPsi declares that Black/African Centered psychology is a dynamic manifestation of unifying African principles, values, and traditions.
Like Umoja, ABPsi invests in Black students from enrollment to graduation and beyond. By offering academic and mental health support, we uplift students’ identities, ensuring they think and act in alignment with the greatness of their heritage.
The ABPsi mission states a unifying focus on the liberation of the African mind, empowerment of the African spirit, and the enlivenment and illumination of the African spirit.
The possibilities for Black/African graduates are limitless. Their manifestations and abilities depend on our acting as jegnas to open the doors to self-awareness that an education in the United States may close. It’s on us to ensure that this season of graduation ceremonies serves as a bridge to the beauty of Black academic excellence and application success.
Photos by Divaris Shirichena and Jadon Johnson on Unsplash
