Hill Harper uses an unconventional method to reach graduates.
More than 12,000 people packed Lawrence Joel Coliseum for Commencement.
Harper gets to the heart of the matter while standing on the Coliseum floor as he addresses the graduates.
Hill Harper, acclaimed film, television and stage actor and New York Times bestselling author, told more than 700 WSSU graduates and a crowd of more than 12,000 packed into the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum to live lives of courage, not fear as they moved into the next phases of their lives.
Harper delivered the keynote address for WSSU’s 117th Spring Commencement May 9. He displayed his own brand of fearlessness boldly stepping from behind the podium with a cordless microphone to deliver his speech, without notes, from the Coliseum floor, walking briskly in the aisles among the graduates. At one point he jumped up on an empty chair to emphasize his message.
He told the graduates not to be afraid to follow their dreams, using President Barack Obama’s career path as an analogy for consideration. He and Obama had been classmates at the Harvard School of Law. They got to know each on the basketball court. “Here was a man (Obama) who was at the top of his class, editor of the Harvard Law Review and clearly on a path to wealth and power. But, when people asked what his plans were, he said he planned to write a book and become a community organizer. They said he was crazy,” recalled Harper. “I don’t even want to tell you what they said about me when I told them I planned to be an actor,” he chuckled, as the crowd roared.
Harper told them not to be afraid to buck conventional wisdom. “Traditional convention would suggest that you should sit and wait for offers,” said Harper. “But I would suggest to you not to sit and wait for offers, but to actually investigate your own core, your own heart and actually make provocative choices about where you want to take your journey.”
Encouraging graduates who had not yet found jobs, he challenged them to make history and start their own businesses and he respectfully asked parents to but out. “I don’t mean any harm but sometimes parents are the biggest dream killers of all.” He said he wanted the graduates to understand that just because someone else couldn’t see their dreams did not mean their dreams didn’t exist.
“Live a life based on courage, not fear,” he told them. “You know what fear is, as far as I am concerned? It’s an acronym that stands for False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A. R.),” he said. “In my business, I deal with it everyday.”
