Black Student Ceremony

The Black Student Convocation and the awarding of the Kente cloth tradition started as an activity of the “Color of Success,” the black honor society. The group was founded in 1988 and inducted a handful of students who had received a GPA of 3.0 or higher during the previous academic year. Graduating students were given a Kente cloth to recognize their accomplishment, that of graduating from college. Over the years the “Color of Success” became inactive, but the awarding of the Kente cloth to graduating students continued.

Made by the Asante people of Ghana and Ewe of Ghana and Togo, this colorful cloth was traditionally used in trade with Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries. Only men produce the Kente cloth’s narrow band weave, which are 2 ½ to 4 ½ inches wide. And among the Asante and Ewe, the art passed down from uncle to nephew, from father to son, generation to generation. Traditionally, among the Asante the woven Kente cloth is used to indicate a person’s status in the tribe or village. Among the Ewe people, the Kente was given and worn to indicate a certain rite of passage, occupation, or social position. Thus today, we use the cloth to honor those seniors who have distinguished themselves by completing the rite of passage.

By James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson

Lift every voice and sing,

‘Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on ‘til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chast’ning rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

‘Til now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our god, where we met thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;

Shadowed beneath thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our god,

True to our native land.