By Danielle Myers Frieson
When I arrived at Clark Atlanta University in the fall of 2006, I carried with me the pride of being a graduate of Hartford Public Schools and the CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. Those experiences had shaped my resilience, creativity, and determination—but within weeks of stepping on campus, I realized just how deeply underprepared I was for the rigor of higher learning. Hartford had given me grit, and the Arts Academy had nurtured my creative expression, but neither had fully equipped me for the academic demands of a university like Clark Atlanta.
That first semester was a wake-up call. Algebra I knocked me down with a C, but courses like College Composition I and Fundamentals of Speech reminded me that I had strengths to build upon. I wasn’t alone—professors and peers poured into me, encouraging me to keep pushing forward. At Clark Atlanta, I learned quickly that you are never just a number; you are part of a community committed to seeing you rise.
The Atlanta University Center was alive with possibility. Walking the same ground W.E.B. Du Bois once walked on my way to class, I knew I was breathing rare air—connected to a lineage of Black scholars and leaders who refused to be erased. The AUC—shared with Spelman, Morehouse, and Morris Brown—was more than a campus network; it was a living ecosystem of culture, brilliance, and pride. Coming from Hartford, where resources were scarce and my community often overlooked by design, I felt both the blessing and the responsibility of being at an HBCU.
That responsibility has always come with resistance. In recent years, HBCUs have been under direct attack, from bomb threats to legislative neglect. Those headlines echo what I first felt in 2006—an awareness that HBCUs are sanctuaries for Black students, born out of exclusion yet constantly targeted for the audacity of existing. My own journey is proof of why these institutions matter: they take students who may arrive unprepared but who leave with excellence and confidence.
By my junior year, I had found my footing. Communication courses became my passion—Voice and Diction, Business and Professional Speech, African American Communication. I was learning how to use language as both a tool and a weapon: to persuade, to resist, to uplift. My theater classes—African American Theater and Children’s Theater—showed me the transformative power of performance as art and activism. And when it came time for my Senior Thesis, I carried into it every lesson learned about discipline, critical thinking, and courage.
Graduating loan-free in 2010—thanks to my community back home and my own determination—Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication was a triumph not just for me, but for Hartford, for the Arts Academy, and for every under-resourced student who doubts whether they can rise to the challenge. It was a victory for every child who dreams beyond the four walls that surround them. Clark Atlanta University took what Hartford and the Arts Academy had given me—grit, creativity, and determination—and refined it into excellence.
Today, when I hear about attacks on HBCUs, I think about the transformation I experienced at Clark Atlanta. These institutions are not just schools; they are lifelines. They are places where young people like me step onto campus carrying uncertainty but leave with power, purpose, and pride. Clark Atlanta did not just educate me—it affirmed me, it saved me, and it set me on the path to bloom.
Extra Petal: “You got to know your history.” ~ Dr. Isabella Jenkins
