JCSU President Warns Of Forces That Seek To Change History
At Johnson C. Smith University’s Founders’ Day Convocation, inside the Jane M. Smith Memorial Chapel, the crowd of graduating seniors, faculty, staff, alumni and community members listened attentively as President Clarence D. Armbrister explained the history of Charlotte’s only HBCU.
“We gather here to commemorate the founding of this venerable institution so we will not forget those who preceded us and sacrificed so we could be here today,” he said.
“There is something I want to leave each of you as I leave the institution at the end of the academic year,” he said. “There are growing forces trying hard to take your history away, change your history to fit a narrative that benefits them or keep you from learning your history at all.”
Armbrister’s speech comes in the midst of ongoing discussions on banning the teaching of critical race theory, a cross-disciplinary examination of how laws and social and political movements are shaped by social conceptions of race and ethnicity.