Baala Shakya, Staff Photographer

Three months after a Trump administration official assailed race-based graduation events, Yale’s Black community marched to the beat of its own drums — quite literally, at the Afro-American Cultural Center’s 26th annual celebration on Commencement weekend.

An hour before the stoling ceremony on Saturday afternoon, lines wrapped around the rotunda of the Schwarzman Center and spilled outside as over 100 students and their families waited to enter Woolsey Hall. Traditional African drummers led students in a jubilant procession down the aisles.

This year’s ceremony was the largest in the House’s history, honoring undergraduate and graduate students across all 14 residential colleges and 12 of Yale’s graduate and professional schools, according to the event’s program. Following the processional, Aman Fikre ’26 and Victoria Pekel ’25 led the audience in a moving rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the Black national anthem.

“You are such a special class, and you had quite the Yale journey,” Timeica Bethel ’11, the director of the Afro-American Cultural Center, said in her welcoming speech. “You’ve seen the world change before your eyes, not just on campus or in the U.S., but also beyond these lands. We must celebrate, because in our celebration is an acknowledgement of the strength and tenacity of our people.”

Bethel said that it “almost feels unfair for us to gather in celebration when so many of our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering unimaginable tragedies, when our friends at other schools have had ceremonies like this one canceled, when anti-Blackness seems like an underlying thing.”

In a February letter to colleagues at the U.S. Department of Education, Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, criticized race-based programming as discriminatory.

“In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories and other facilities,” he wrote.

Last month, a federal court blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the letter’s interpretation of civil rights protections.

However, Harvard decided the following week to no longer fund or host affinity group commencement celebrations, due to threats from the Trump administration to escalate its targeted funding cuts, the Harvard Crimson reported.

Bethel did not name President Donald Trump or Harvard in her eight-minute speech on Saturday.

The theme of perseverance resonated throughout the ceremony. Pastor OrLando Yarborough III GRD ’10 of the Black Church at Yale offered an invocation, followed by a spoken word performance by Nikhe Braimah ’25, Elishevlyne Eliason ’25 and Elyse Thomas ’25. 

Afterward, Bethel returned to present awards of excellence to students in the House community. The numerous awardees included former Yale College Council Vice President Maya Fonkeu ’25 and Teo Rice ’25, the captain of the Yale men’s basketball team this school year.

“I think it’s a really special time to be celebrating Black excellence, and it feels really momentous,” Remington Hill LAW ’25 told the News. “Some of the people that have carried me through the most are people that I’ve met through the Yale Black Law Students Association.”

Following the awards, undergraduates from each residential college were called to the stage to be draped in a kente cloth stole by a chosen guest. Graduates then walked across campus to the Afro-American Cultural Center on Park Street — waving flags and singing songs — for a reception with alumni, family and friends.

For Kennedy Odiboh ’25, who received the Outstanding Student Leader Award — the highest honor the House confers, Bethel said — the celebration was not just about personal recognition but the people who got him there.

“It’s more about community than the accolades, honestly, in that I wouldn’t be where I’m at without the House,” Odiboh told the News at the reception. “When I failed my first midterm test, I came back here, and it was the people, the upperclassmen at the House who welcomed me with open arms. Seeing people who did it before us, and who were able to persevere in the face of challenges similar to this, it is inspiring.”

Nicolas Brierre Aziz ART ’25, who is earning his degree in sculpture from the Yale School of Art, told the News that the event reminded him of his time at Morehouse College, a historically Black college.

“Just to be around this much Black joy, beauty and excellence, it just strikes a really deep memory for me,” Brierre Aziz said.

The 2025 Afro-American Cultural Center stoling celebration overlapped with the second half of the Yale College senior reception in Commons.