A Morehouse student Was Lynched in 1930. Why the College Gave Him a Posthumous Degree.

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5 days ago

I still remember the call from Allison Bantimba, former leader for the Fulton County Remembrance Coalition, a community remembrance project focused on healing and learning from the legacy of racial terror through reconciliation.
Her voice carried the kind of reverence that comes when you're about to be invited into sacred work.
'We have another lynching victim to remember,' she said. 'And I'd like you to take the lead on this remembrance because of your connection and reverence to Atlanta's history.'
Within minutes, the file arrived in my inbox. I opened the report, and as I read, I felt my heart break — but not for the reason you might think.
This wasn't the first lynching report I'd received — I've read many over the years — but Dennis Hubert's story was different.
Like Warren Powell, who was just 14 years old when he was lynched in East Point, Georgia, in 1899, Dennis was a child to some and a young man to others. Dennis was 18— a divinity student at Morehouse College. A son and grandson. Full of potential and deeply rooted in a family that believed in education, faith, and service. His lineage reached back to Hancock County, to Camille and Zak Hubert.
I dug deeper. I spoke with the family. I continued the work virtually when the world shut down during the pandemic. We hosted remembrance gatherings, and kept his story alive.
On the night of June 15, 1930, Dennis had gone to the playground at Crogman School in Atlanta's Pittsburgh neighborhood — a segregated school where his mother was the principal. What happened next was as senseless as it was brutal.
A group of seven white men accused Dennis of offending a white woman. There was no proof. No investigation. No mercy. They beat him in front of children, and then one of the attackers pulled out a gun and shot him in the head. He died there, his young life extinguished by hatred.
In his memory, I stood at the site where he was murdered and collected soil. In 2021, a year later, we erected a historical marker at that exact spot. I tended to his grave at South-View Cemetery. I cried in silence and with the community.
And recently, I cried again — but this time, they were tears of joy.
On the rainy morning of May 17, 2025, Morehouse College called Dennis T. Hubert's name during its 141st commencement ceremony and posthumously awarded him a Bachelor of Arts in Religion. His great-nephew, Imam Plemon El-Amin, walked across the stage and accepted the degree on his behalf, 95 years after his death.
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Morehouse College President David Thomas called Hubert a 'son of Morehouse, a martyr of justice, and what history now sees as the Trayvon Martin of the 1930s in Atlanta.'
It was more than a degree. It was an act of reclamation.
El-Amin recalled an Islamic concept, telling CNN: 'There are three things a person leaves behind after their death: their charity, knowledge, and family members who pray for them.'
It was a warm thing, watching El-Amin stand on that stage, the weight of his great uncle's name resting in his hands like a promise kept. The moment pulled at memory—slow and deliberate—as if the past was not behind us but seated beside us. Through paper and paint, archive and altar, the community and Morehouse stitched a brother back into the world for the Hubert family. Not gone. Not forgotten. Just waiting to be remembered the right way.
Later that day, I laughed with the family at the president's reception. We exchanged hugs with professors like Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, Myrick-Harris White, Stephane Dunn and students who had also fought to see Dennis honored in this way. We celebrated because this wasn't just a symbolic gesture. It was a long-overdue homecoming and acceptance into the Morehouse brotherhood.
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I felt, in those moments, the long arc of justice bending — not fast, not easy — but bending toward our babies and their becoming.
Some say, 'Dennis should have lived a full life.' I say he did. Sharing his story over the years, Dennis was able to symbolically preach from pulpits, walk with his community, and even watch his Morehouse brothers graduate over the years.
Dennis has a legacy — a legacy that calls us to remember, resist forgetting, and restore the dignity that was taken.
And we, his community, will continue to carry it forward.
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