Residents react to Stacey Abrams keynote address on UMES campus

Princess Anne, Md. – Roughly 600 people attended Wednesday’s “Presidential Lecture” at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore featuring voting rights activist, author and former Georgian Representative Stacey Abrams. Abrams’ remarks highlighted the importance of education and political efficacy as well as the invaluable impact of attending and supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

The event began at 6:30 p.m. at the Student Services Center Theater, featuring opening remarks by UMES President Dr. Heidi Anderson followed by an open discussion between Anderson and Abrams and questions from the audience. Their discussion focused on political activism, Diversity Equity and Inclusion and the importance of exercising the right to vote. Several students lined up to ask Abrams questions on leadership, political aspirations, Artificial Intelligence and staying politically involved in the digital age.

“Our responsibility in this moment is to understand that education isn’t just about the degree you hold, it’s about the knowledge that it transfers,” HBCU alum Abrams said. “One of the challenges that we face is that we often attribute consequence and possibility to the endgame. Our responsibility is to understand the current moment. This is a generation that has more information than any one in human history. But information is not the same thing as knowledge.”

Salisbury residents Peggy and George Stewart said they had been following Abrams’ career and her work for years.

“I am so happy that we were afforded the opportunity to attend this event tonight here on campus, especially since we are alums,” Peggy said.

Anderson launched the “Presidential Lecture” series to highlight issues of the day to inspire students to become politically and socially engaged with their communities. Anderson says the event reflected UMES’ values as a learning institution by fostering an environment for learning and leadership.

“The whole idea of a presidential series is to get them to step outside of themselves just for a moment and reflect and think about it and then say, ‘what can I do differently for the world? How can I be the one that transforms other people’s lives?,'” she said in an interview with WMDT.

“I think with the university bring in these kind of speakers, it really shows that they were once in our shoes — students — not only just students, but from an HBCU,” UMES Sophomore and Criminal Justice Major Shayla Henry said. 

One student, SGA President Armani Dukes, asked Abrams how to go about informing the community to support HBCUs in the midst of federal defunding of DEI programs.

“How do we go about kind of getting our community members to get it to understand this is wrong and that we need to step up?” he asked.

“We have to remember that when HBCUs were created, they were created by the people who had been slaves — had been enslaved weeks before they became students,” Abrams said. “And while the integrated institutions were invested in by the government, they were not given the resources necessary to actually make education possible. They were there to give you a little taste of what could be. And so as as offensive as the defunding is, our determination has to be strong.”

Henry, who is from a single parent home in a “small city in south Florida,” said listening to Abrams reminded her students can “really take it the distance just from being from a HBCU.”

“You don’t have to allow your past to define you,” Henry said. “It’s really about what you do now and how you act on it.”

Henry said Abrams’ remarks made her feel inspired to make a difference now rather than later in life.

“You don’t have to wait until you’re older to do something. You could really just do it now,” she said. “And her coming here and speaking to us, it made a lot of us feel seen.”