CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: HBCU s MATTER
BY CHRISTINA ROYSTER
W hen Travis Mitchell of Morgan State University’s Class of 1992 was in preschool, the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, was his playground. His mother, uncle and aunt worked on campus, so he often played there after school while waiting for his mother to finish work. Growing up at the South’s oldest HBCU, he felt affirmed by the largely African American group of students, faculty and staff members he knew and by the unwavering support the alumni showed the school.
“When it came time for me to choose a college, I did so as an athlete, a basketball player. I was also an honors student with a solid GPA and SAT scores and many AP courses on my transcript,” Mitchell says. “I had plenty of colleges recruiting me and did not face the Jim Crow restrictions that my parents had.” However, because of his connection with Shaw, the type of college experience he desired was already defined. “I was in search of an HBCU experience,” Mitchell says, albeit a little
farther from home.
says, his identity expanded from student editor to student leader, a change that contributed to the development and growth of Morgan as a whole. Catalyst for Change “While covering a protest being planned by student leaders across campus to address frustrations with poor dormitory conditions and safety concerns, among other issues, I was drafted to be a spokesperson to present our case to the school administration and the public,” Mitchell says. “We discovered quickly that most of
That was when his father, a Shaw Hall of Fame player and coach, introduced him to Morgan State University’s basketball coach, Nat Frazier, who recruited him to Morgan with an offer to play basketball. He also received a full academic honors scholarship. When his basketball career at Morgan ended early, Mitchell became an assistant editor and later editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Spokesman. In this capacity, he
4 2 | HBCU TIMES FALL ISSUE 2024
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs