Negro

• In a 2019 article, The New York Times tried to find the origins of the use of the term for Howard when U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, one of the school’s most well-known alumnae, was still a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
• It seemed intriguing to me as a longtime admirer of Malcolm X – and also as one who made the pilgrimage to the original Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as Malcolm famously did in 1964.
• Still, as a veteran education writer with an extensive history of covering historically Black colleges and universities – including Howard – I decided to dig deeper.

A new era

• This was – contrary to what The New York Times said about the term emerging after the death of Malcolm X in 1965 – nearly 15 years before he was even born.
• My finding comes at a time when Howard, located in Washington, D.C., is entering a new era.
• R-1 is a classification level reserved for universities that grant doctoral degrees and also have “very high research activity.”

Going way back

• Its founders envisioned Howard as a school for educating and training Black physicians, teachers and ministers from the nearly 4 million newly freed slaves.
• There, I did a simple search for the term “Mecca” and got more than 400 results, including the one from 1909.

The meaning of ‘The Mecca’

• It is most often meant to preserve Howard’s reputation as a beacon of Black thought.
• That first reference from February 1909 came in an article written by J.A.
• Mitchell, a student who referred to Howard as a potential Mecca for young Black students.
• A few years later, in a 1913 edition of the Howard University Journal, an article stated:
  “Howard is a strategic institution.

A different Mecca?

• Anyone familiar with the culture at Howard knows there’s a long-standing rivalry between Howard University and Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, over which school is ‶the real HU.” My research shows there might have once been a debate over which school is “The Mecca” as well.
• When Booker T. Washington arrived at Hampton in 1872 – five years after Howard University was founded in 1867 – Hampton, Virginia, was known as the “Mecca of the ambitious colored youth of the dismantled South,” according to a 1910 Howard manuscript titled “A Ride with Booker T. Washington.” Hampton isn’t the only U.S. city to be known as a Black Mecca.
• As noted in a 1925 edition of “The Crisis” – the NAACP magazine founded in 1910 by W.E.B.
• DuBois – Washington, D.C., was “regarded as the Mecca of the American Negro, for here he is under the wing of the eagle and can’t be made the victim of hostile legislation or rules.” Around the same time, Alain Locke, who taught English and philosophy at Howard in the early 1910s and started the school’s philosophy department, proclaimed Harlem as the “Mecca of the new Negro.” Locke is also known as the “dean of the Harlem Renaissance.” The point is this idea of a Black Mecca was constantly shifting and continues to shift to this day.

The Mecca of the future

• Despite archival records that show Howard was called The Mecca as early as 1909, other details have yet to be discovered.
• Perhaps under the leadership of President Vinson, a champion of digital scholarship, Howard students and scholars can continue to research how Howard came to be known as The Mecca.

• Gallaudet University, the world's premier institution for deaf and hard of hearing students, will hold a graduation ceremony to honor the 23 Black Deaf students and four Black teachers of the Kendall School Division II for Negroes.
• Kendall School Division II was a segregated private elementary school for Black Deaf students that operated on Gallaudet's campus from 1952 to 1954.
• From 1898 to 1905, Kendall School, a K-12 program on the campus of what is now Gallaudet University, enrolled and educated Black students.
• This led to – rather than the acceptance of Black Deaf students into Kendall School outright – the construction on the Gallaudet campus of the segregated Kendall School Division II for Negroes, an inferior building with fewer resources than those made available to white students.

• ATLANTA, March 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Scientific Games announces the appointment of highly-accomplished senior financial management executive Nick Negro as the company's new Chief Financial Officer.
• Scientific Games CEO Pat McHugh, said, "We are grateful for Jim Bunitsky's outstanding financial leadership and excited to now add Nick to our Executive Leadership Team in the role of CFO.
• Negro joins McHugh on the Scientific Games Executive Leadership Team, which also includes John Schulz, President of Americas and Global Instant Products; Michael Conforti, President of International and Strategic Accounts; Steve Beason, President, Digital and Sports; Jennifer Welshons, Chief Marketing Officer; Dena Rosenzweig, Chief Legal Officer; Stephen Richardson, Chief Administrative and Compliance Officer; Mona Garland, Chief Human Resources Officer; Walt Eisele, Chief Technology Officer; Jim Schultz, Executive Vice President, Global Public Policy and Government Affairs, and Jeff Martineck, Senior Vice President, Products and Innovation.
• Since 1973, Scientific Games provides games, technology, analytics and services to lotteries around the world.

• Currently, 14 state organizations sanction Name, Image and Likeness opportunities for high school students: California, Alaska, Idaho, Maine, North Dakota, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Utah.
• "Year-in, year-out, we create one of the toughest schedules in the nation to challenge our players to be at their very best," said Negro.
• "It is critical that students-athletes have access to the best wellness, strength training and sports performance technology available with KONGiQ."
• The NIL opportunity is available to any student-athlete using the KONGiQ equipment and technology, where NIL is sanctioned.