The rain had just started to fall on the Morehouse College campus when Johnny Simmons arrived at the Martin Luther King International Chapel to meet Makhi Frempong.
They didn’t speak to each other as they climbed the steps inside the chapel to the African American Hall of Fame, a collection of dozens of vivid paintings outlining the history of Black excellence from Frederick Douglass to Oprah Winfrey, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“When you see these portraits, it pushes you to be great,” said Simmons, breaking the silence.
Simmons, a 21-year-old junior at Morehouse, and Frempong, a 20-year-old junior at Spelman College, had originally planned to meet some fellow students to talk about the historic nature of Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the first graduate of a Black college being elected president of the United States.
A Harris victory would put an exclamation point on the notion that the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities continue to pump out quality students who go on to successful careers that contribute to society — including the White House.
But the early morning shock of Harris losing cast a pall over the campuses in the Atlanta University Center that the gray skies and rain only exploited.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
“I feel a little uncertain not knowing what the future will hold for us,” said Simmons, who is from Apopka, Florida. “But not even just the future, but what the present moment right now will hold for us.”
Frempong, an economics major, said she went to bed early Tuesday night and was shocked Wednesday morning not only by Harris’ defeat, but by how sweeping and complete it was.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“We are all just figuring out how to feel at this moment and where we go from here,” said Frempong, Spelman’s student government association director of leadership and civic engagement.
Harris’ nomination, and her run for the presidency, was one of the most mobilizing events in the history of America’s Black colleges. A 1986 graduate of Howard University, Harris was the first product of an HBCU to represent a party on a presidential ticket.
Throughout the campaign Black colleges, their alumni associations and Black Greek organizations rallied around Harris, who they saw as one of their own.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
At Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown College, Morehouse and Spelman, students held voter registration drives, planned forums, worked on the Harris campaign and marched through neighborhoods to try to get her elected.
“We did a phenomenal job of mobilizing. We did a phenomenal job of getting the word out there,” Simmons said. “But I think there is a point where we just needed certain individuals to be educated a little bit more on the rights to vote and the policies that Kamala wanted to put in place.”
On many college campuses, including some in Georgia, students mobilized for Donald Trump. His support among 18- to 29-year-olds increased nationally from 2020 to 2024, according to exit polling. A CNN exit poll found 37% of Georgians between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Trump.
The AUC campuses were almost stunned into silence on Wednesday. However, several Morehouse students were camped out in the cafeteria in what amounted to an open mic session where they could talk about their feelings.
Frempong said that leading up to Election Day, all of that hard work gave the students an air of confidence that Harris would win.
“Everyone had been putting in the hard work since August,” Frempong said. “So, when we got the result, we were a little puzzled about what happened.”
Some wondered how could a lawyer who has served as attorney general for the state of California and vice president lose to Trump, a twice impeached former president with 34 felony counts, one conviction, two pending criminal cases and six bankruptcies, who ran on a promise of authoritarianism.
“America continues to show its true colors. Preserving white supremacy over the people. Preserving dictatorship over democracy,” said Simone Moales, a 22-year-old Spelman senior from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the college’s student government association president. “Preserving evil over ... this overqualified Black woman who embodies the ideals that we all love and adore in America.”
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While many of the AUC students were voting in their first presidential elections, it wasn’t enough to make up for some Black voters who cast their ballots for Trump. While Black women remained steadfast and Black men supported Harris overwhelmingly, that support was down at least 12% nationally from the 90% of Black men who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
Jordan Phillips, a senior sociology major from Philadelphia, said those figures left him disappointed and confused.
“My heart began to race, understanding that the results didn’t turn out as we thought they would,” Phillips said. “But with the work that we’ve done throughout this election on our campuses, I still remain confident that we have what we need to continue to allow our voices to be heard and inspire those around us. Though disappointed, I am still inspired and still motivated to continue this fight. This fight is not over.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Moales, who worked as an advance associate on the Harris campaign, said her entire presidential campaign, as it concluded on Howard’s campus where she gave a concession speech Wednesday afternoon, provided the opportunity for the world to witness firsthand the value of a Black college education.
“There was an element of storytelling that was unmatched in this campaign. It was beautifully fitting for this moment in our country, but it was also a reminder for folks to continue to invest in HBCUs,” said Moales, a political science major applying to law school.
Sitting beneath the portraits on Morehouse’s campus, Phillips’ voice cracked several times as he tried to find words for his emotions around the election results.
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Ben Gray for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the rain continued outside, he gazed at the portraits and concluded that he was exactly where he needed to be at the time.
“Despite the outcome, Kamala Harris inspired the nation. She inspired us at each and every one of our campuses. She inspired the Black and brown young boys and girls that got to see a woman come so close to holding one the highest seats in this country,” Phillips said. “Every individual on this wall had to face difficult challenges. I spend a lot of time up here just reading the names on the wall and reminding myself that when I graduate in May, I will start to write my own story.”
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