An HBCU gave the women ‘on Trump’s tail’ (and me) the courage to fight
There’s a sweet irony in seeing these two women whose ancestors might have descended from slaves try to help save American democracy. That both graduated from Howard University is no surprise to me.
At first glance, I thought the headline on a column in the Washington Post read, “The two Howard University women on Trump’s tail.”
Then I looked again and realized that it read that the women were on Trump’s trail, not tail. Ha!
I actually prefer my first reading.
As the Pulitzer Prize-winning Colbert I. King points out in his piece, not one but two female Howard University graduates are leading charges at the state level to prosecute former Pres. Donald Trump.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a graduate of Howard Law School, filed a 222-page lawsuit in September against the ex-president and three of his children. The suit accuses them of grossly exaggerating Trump’s net worth by billions, and misleading financial institutions about the value of his properties, including his Mar-a-Lago estate.
“For too long, powerful, wealthy people in this country have operated as if the rules do not apply to them. Donald Trump stands out as among the most egregious examples of this misconduct,” James said in a statement. “Mr. Trump thought he could get away with the art of the steal, but today, that conduct ends.”
His legal team denies any wrongdoing.
In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis is heading the Peach State’s investigation into whether Trump and his allies broke the law when he attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. No decisions have been announced about indictments, but last month she told the Post that serious crimes have been committed that could land people in jail.
Like me, Willis got her undergraduate degree from Howard University.
I always enjoy learning about the successes of my fellow Bison — including Vice President Kamala Harris, whose time at the historically Black university in Washington, overlapped with mine. I’m pleased — and not at all surprised — to see fellow alums leading the charge in investigating wrongdoing by our former leader.
If Howard University — which begins its first entirely in-person homecoming in two years on Oct. 15 — is about nothing else, it’s fostering Black excellence and social advocacy.
Though accusations have circled around Trump for years, James and Willis are two of the only people at their level who have stepped up the way they have. Given the former president’s long track record of racism and misogyny, it feels apropos that Black women are doing this work.
African American women have a long history of being the ones to roll up their proverbial sleeves and clean up other people’s messes. We are the Democratic Party’s most loyal and reliable voting bloc. Roughly 93% of African American women voted for Joe Biden during the last presidential election. (You’re welcome.)
Despite fighting hard for voting rights for both women and African Americans, Black women have never gotten the credit they deserve for their many contributions — often unpaid. It’s gratifying to see two such accomplished attorneys leading the fight to prosecute a former president who essentially thumbed his nose at America’s democratic process when he attempted to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election.
The fact that they both came out of Howard makes sense. During my time there, the university impressed upon us the importance of leadership and service, and of leaving the world a better place, particularly for the African diaspora.
That school gave me my marching orders. I’ll never forget being stopped by the former head of the journalism department and asked: “What’s your major? Have you had an internship?” At the time, I was taking journalism classes, but only had a fuzzy idea of what I would do after graduation. Lawrence Kaggwa told me to change my major to print journalism and helped me apply for my first internship. I can still hear his voice informing me, “You are going to be a newspaper editor.”
I graduated with the dean’s award for community service because of my work editing one of the school newspapers, and with a newfound sense of mission. I knew that I had work to do. I imagine James and Willis did, too.
“If you can register for classes at Howard, you can do anything in the world,” joked the Rev. Marshall Mitchell, who attended Howard as an undergraduate and now serves as pastor of the historic Salem Baptist Church in Abington.
“Unlike most of Howard’s peers, most of the Black colleges, it does not have any religious foundations. So it is purely and truly a secular institution,” he told me. “I think Howard’s religion is excellence. Howard’s religion is grit. And Howard’s religion is determination. That’s the mother’s milk of an education at Howard.”
There’s also a “remarkable tradition” of Black female lawyers — whether they went to Howard or not — being fearless and tough, Mitchell added, mentioning Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court and serve as a federal judge. “These women are tough and they are indefatigable.”
There’s such a sweet irony in watching as these two badass prosecutors whose ancestors may well have descended from enslaved Africans lead the charge at the state level to try to save American democracy. They are taking a lot of heat for what they’re doing. But I know it won’t deter them.
They’re going to stay on Trump’s tail.