Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser came to Howard University on Saturday, trying to graduate herself from City Hall, as if she and the class of 2026 were walking the same stage.
But those students were not fooled. They were not there to be props in her farewell narrative. They were not there to clap for a mayor who wanted to borrow the glow of the Mecca without answering for what happened to the city around it.
The graduates booed her. Of course they did. What did people expect?
That a graduating class of politically literate, Gen Z, HBCU students, sitting on the Yard in the middle of D.C., was going to pretend they had not spent the last four years watching this city become more expensive, more policed,more developer-friendly, and less livable for Black communities? Anybody pretending to be shocked has not been paying attention to the city those students had to survive while earning those degrees.
Bowser, who received an honorary doctorate degree from Howard, stood on the dais and said, “Just like you, I will be graduating, too. This is my commencement, too.”
She kept reaching for Howard’s history, symbols, rhythm, and sacred language, as if proximity to the Mecca could launder her record. She said she had learned the night before that receiving an honorary degree made her a Bison, then tried to play with “H-U” and “You Know” like students were supposed to forget rent, policing, displacement, Trump, Black Lives Matter Plaza, federal troops, downtown developer politics, and the cost of trying to survive in her D.C.
Ma’am. No.
These students survived a pandemic, racially motivated bomb threats, cyber attacks, tuition aid cuts and a federal government shutdown, housing stress, internships, family sacrifice, campus pressures, D.C. rent, and a political climate openly hostile to Black institutions. They earned their Howard degrees. Bowser is leaving office. That is not the same ceremony, the same walk, or the same tassel. But she decided to climb into their milestone as if it were one of her downtown redevelopment projects.
The tone of Bowser’s speech was defensive before it ever became inspirational. She wrapped herself in Howard’s history, Black resilience, sacred tradition, and the language of courage. She told them Howard and D.C. are “inextricably linked,” invoked D.C. emancipation, Charles Drew, Sharon Pratt, Adrian Fenty, “Don’t Mute DC,” the Voting Rights Act, Black excellence, democracy, autocracy, and The Hilltop student newspaper.
She wrapped herself in the language of Black freedom while presiding over a city where Black people have been pushed out, housing has become obscene, and students have had to figure out how to live while being priced out of D.C., study and work, buy groceries, and breathe in a city that increasingly treats them as temporary consumers rather than young Black people trying to build a life. Howard’s own student newspaper has covered local residents and students connecting homelessness and displacement to gentrification. Underneath all that commencement polish was a mayor trying to justify her record to a crowd that already knew too much to be charmed.
She also condescendingly told the graduates, “You know a lot, but compared to what you will learn over the course of your life, you know relatively little.” Ma’am. Read the Yard!
These students knew enough to boo her in real time. And they knew enough to hear the gap between the freedom language and her governing record. They knew enough to know that invoking “Free DC” while presiding over the gentrification of D.C. is not a flex.
Her words landed like quick little pats on the head. It sounded like: you are young; you do not yet understand power. But they do understand power. That is why they booed. They understand that politicians love Black students as symbols but rarely listen to them as constituents. They understand that HBCU students are constantly celebrated as “the future” while being told to shut up in the present.
These students have lived through rent hikes, campus housing pressure, gentrification, policing debates, Trump-era threats to home rule, and the slow whitening and pricing-out of Chocolate City. They watched Shaw, U Street, Georgia Avenue, LeDroit Park, Columbia Heights, and neighborhoods surrounding the Mecca become playgrounds for developers, luxury apartments, investor money, brunch culture, and white gentrifiers treat the Yard like a dog run.
These are not children who wandered into a civics lecture. These are Howard students. They study law, journalism, policy, public health, political science, economics, education, history, and Black life under siege. They know what power sounds like when it is trying to flatter them into silence. And Bowser’s speech was full of that kind of language.
After comparing her departure from City Hall to the graduates’ commencement, she began reciting the familiar résumé of municipal achievement: she had run for office six times, set “bold goals like ending family homelessness,” created “more affordable housing, more per capita than any place in America,” strengthened public schools, accelerated Black homeownership, Black business growth, and created better opportunities for Black developers. It was meant to sound like legacy. But to many Howard students, it likely sounded like spin.
