On Wednesday at the University Club, Soul of SF State hosted its first-ever “Soulful Celebration” in honor of Black master’s and doctoral graduating students.
The celebration is meant to be the first of what the organization hopes to become an annual event. The purpose of the event was to create an “intentional and affirming space to honor the brilliance, resilience and scholarly excellence of our Black graduate students earning their Master’s of Arts and doctoral degrees in the class of 2025,” according to a speech Soul of SF State member Tachelle Herron Lane delivered at the event.
The room was filled with “melanin, magic and mastery,” said Herron Lane, a doctoral candidate.
“Commencements on campus kind of overshadow the graduate students, which is a smaller community on campus,” said Shanice Robinson, who holds a doctorate and is a founding member of the organization. “We wanted to make sure we curated a special place for them to be celebrated and not be overshadowed at the larger commencement.”
At San Francisco State University’s commencement ceremony, students will be shown on screen as they receive diploma covers, but their names will not be called, and individual students, other than the speakers, are not highlighted.
Herron Lane said the Black Graduation ceremony also did not do enough to highlight graduate students and their achievements. She felt that the department graduations were lacking as well.
“They have a department graduation where everyone is celebrated and they’re hooded and they try to do their best, but they don’t have food,” Herron Lane said.
To make up for these shortfalls, the Soulful Graduation celebration had plenty of ribs, chicken, collard greens, potatoes, green beans, pasta salad and baked beans.
The event also included speeches from faculty and members of Soul of SF State leadership, along with a musical interlude where attendees were led in songs like “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers.
“The first thing that you have to do as a faculty member is just be there for students, and sometimes the needs of Black students are different. So, sometimes it requires more nurturing,” said Professor Doris Flowers, who delivered a speech. “In many ways, they are leaving their communities and they are looking for a community on campus, and so most times we try to form that community for them.”
Soul of SF State was formed in 2020 as a virtual gathering of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization was begun in order to combat the isolation of quarantine and foster connection among Black students when, according to Robinson, “uncertainty and isolation weighed heavily on our community.”
“In the wake of the unjust murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd — and in the absence of any meaningful response or support from the university for its Black community — we made a collective decision to strengthen our village,” said Robinson. “Since then, we’ve built a space that centers our joy, our pain, our progress and our power.”
Lauren Sneed, who was honored at the event, completed both her master’s degree and her doctoral program at SFSU.
Her dissertation, titled “Redefining Freedom: The Prison to University Pathways of Black Scholars Transition through a Counseling Lens,” focused on the ways of getting formerly incarcerated Black men and women into higher education and helping them to succeed with stress placed on social justice, equity and access.
“It means so much to me that I was invited and that they are highlighting four Black scholars,” Sneed said. “This means so much to us to be recognized within the academy, in the community, as Black scholars, and that we have also achieved our doctorate.”
The four recent doctorate recipients honored were Sneed, LaRae Gainey, Omar Currie and Byron Reaves.
According to Robinson, Soul of SF State does its best to collaborate and build connections between their organization and other Black organizations on campus, such as the Black Student Union. Members of a few different organizations were present at the event, such as Us4Us, a community service and outreach organization based in the Bayview-Hunters Point area.
“We do our best to help funnel underprivileged community members to get to college, get through college and support them as best we can,” said Damien Posey, the founder of Us4Us Bay Area, who was also honored at the event for his contributions to helping Black students on campus. “Whatever is going on over here with the young people, the students, we’re on the ground to support.”
The event closed with awards, well wishes and many photos for attendees. Robinson also made note of the future events that Soul of SF State hopes to hold in the upcoming semester.
“We are hoping to establish some allyship opportunities for students, and we’re hoping to pass the torch to the next generation,” Robinson said. “We’re the founders, but we want to make sure that when we leave, the legacy continues to the next generation and we’ll always come back to support.”
