By Chris Barber
Contributing Writer

The students, families and staff of Lincoln University greeted Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warmly and enthusiastically as he delivered the keynote speech at the school’s 166th commencement ceremony on Sunday.

An audience of several hundred individuals filled the huge, makeshift tent that seemed to dwarf the adjacent International Cultural Center. The tent accommodated the large crowd and kept them dry from the rain.

After gratefully thanking the university and its President Brenda Allen for inviting him to speak, Moore referenced the legacy and wisdom of his grandfather—a 1946 Lincoln University graduate. Moore offered some advice for the students who sat ready to receive their diplomas.

“We give thanks to those who came before us. You will work on those wide shoulders on behalf of our future,” he said.

He warned of extreme binaries in political outlook that have plagued the nation in recent years. He said he rejects “Red versus Blue, Left versus Right, and thinking that loving America means hating the other half.”

No stranger to racial violence and prejudice himself, he said he felt handcuffs placed on his wrists when he was only 11 by overzealous policing, but later became the chief executive of his state.

He delivered a message about the importance of patriotism while maintaining the proper cautions of what can come with it. He said he has clung to three basic principles of “What it means to be a patriotic American.”

The first principle is realizing, as his grandfather taught and believed, is that patriotism is more than words.

 “Patriotism is not and cannot be a passive activity,” he said. “You will be tested, and the love of your country will be tested.”

The second principle: “Don’t believe that our country is perfect or the lie that its history is perfect,” he said. “It’s about struggle and sacrifice. Loving a country does not mean lying about its history. …that binary does not leave room for its betterment.”

The third principle: “Skepticism about the country is justified. Just let it be your companion, but not your captain,” he said.

Moore said the honorable legacy of Lincoln University and its survival is something that the graduates will carry with them on their life journeys.  

He talked about how far Lincoln University has come, and compared it to how things have changed and improved in his home state of Maryland.

Moore said, “Lincoln University was founded in 1854 when even considering a black man as three-fifths of a man was generous. … My state was the birth of red-lining. It was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The building I serve in was built by enslaved individuals. My city was a slave port.”

Through it all, he added, Lincoln University has survived and risen to greatness as few others have.

Moore, 47, is Maryland’s first Black governor and is the third African-American in the United States to be elected governor.

He is a graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy and the College and Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

He served the military in Afghanistan, where he was a captain with the 82nd Airborne Division, and wrote the books, “The Other Wes Moore” and “Five Days.”

He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Dawn Flythe Moore, and their two children, Mia and James.

Shortly after his keynote speech, Moore was bestowed the hood of the honorary doctorate along with five other individuals. The recipients are the late author/artist Vincent Carter; higher education and finance leader Donald Julian Reaves; pharmaceutical executive, inventor, and philanthropist Myrtle Potter; psychologist and educator Desmund Gordon; and minister and educator Ethelyn Taylor.

Lincoln University, located in Lower Oxford Township, is the nation’s first degree-granting Black College and University.

Several well-known graduates of the university include Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, playwright/poet Langston Hughes, Nigerian President Nnamdi Azikiwe and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, among others.