Howard University

Phylicia Rashad knew that she would get a “sense of pride” at Howard University. She studied theatre and made her way to New York City, taking her first apprentice role with New York’s pioneering Negro Ensemble Company. Years later she would become a Tony-winning Broadway, film, and television actress, and alumni trustee.

Her career paved the way for countless African-American women. Rashad also takes on the roles of director and master class professor. Although she is most known for her award-winning role as “Clair Huxtable” on “The Cosby Show,” her roster runs long, with performances in “Dreamgirls,” “The Wiz,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and most recently, the movie, “Creed,” and the television show, “This is Us” as Howard alumna Susan Kelechi Watson’s mother. She has won several awards, including a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for “A Raisin in the Sun,” two NAACP Image Awards for Best Actress in “The Cosby Show,” and an award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special. She was the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University, and has received 10 honorary doctorate degrees, including one from her alma mater.

Leslie Hale is president and CEO of RLJ Lodging Trust, and serves on the Board of Directors. Hale’s promotion makes her the first African American woman to be chief executive of a publicly traded real estate investment trust. Prior to August 2018, she served as chief financial officer since 2007, executive vice president of Real Estate & Finance since 2013 and chief operating officer since 2016. She is intricately involved in the company’s investment decision-making and long-term strategic planning. In addition, Ms. Hale oversees the execution of all asset and corporate level transactions, investor relations, and the management of the Company’s Asset Management and Design and Construction functions.

Hale earned a BBA degree with a concentration in finance from Howard University, graduating summa cum laude. She earned her MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Goldman Sachs and Robert F. Toigo Fellow. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Macy’s, Inc. and as a trustee of Howard University. In 2011, she was honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of the “Top 40 Executives Under 40.”

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. Esq. is a leader of advocacy and change in law and civil rights. He earned his J.D. degree from the Howard University School of Law and ignited his ambition to serve through many executive leadership positions and presidential appointments, including chairman of the Clinton Presidential Transition Team, president of the National Urban League, and executive director of the United Negro College Fund. He is a member of the Bars of Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Georgia, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and is the senior managing director of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC in New York. He has been a director of American Express and Xerox Corporation and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Jordan, a Howard University trustee emeritus, holds honorary degrees from more than 60 colleges and universities, and is the author of “Vernon Can Read! A Memoir” (Public Affairs, 2001) and “Make It Plain, Standing Up and Speaking Out” (Public Affairs, 2008). In 2007, his portrait was unveiled in the Great Hall of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall Jr. devoted his professional life to studying how cancer affects African-Americans. A native of Tallahassee, Fla., Leffall earned his bachelor’s degree from Florida A&M College in 1948, at the age of 18. In 1952, he earned a medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine and completed his surgical training at Freedmen’s Hospital (now Howard University Hospital). Dr. Leffall has been awarded 14 honorary degrees from universities across the United States.

Dr. Leffall is the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery in the College of Medicine. The Howard University Press published Dr. Leffall’s memoirs, "No Boundaries – A Cancer Surgeon’s Odyssey" in 2005 and a second 2014 book, "Equanimity Under Duress: Calmness and Courage In the Battle Against Cancer."

Dr. Leffall has lectured at more than 200 medical institutions, taught more than 6,000 medical students, and trained more than 300 surgical residents. Today, he lectures at the Howard University College of Medicine. In 2017, he received the Howard University College of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris was born in Oakland, Calif. She refers to her time at Howard as her “formative years” where she first was introduced to her love of politics. After earning an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings, she began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

In 2003, Sen. Harris became the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. Having completed two terms as the District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California's Attorney General. In this role, she worked tirelessly to hold corporations accountable and protect the state’s most vulnerable people.

In 2017, Harris was sworn in as a United States Senator for California, the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. Harris serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Budget. On January 21, 2019, she formally announced her run for president and hosted her first press conference at her alma mater, Howard University.

Thurgood Marshall sought admission into Howard University Law School following his denial of admission on the basis of his race into University of Maryland Law School. Unbeknownst to him, this decision directed his professional career where he championed for equal rights - particularly on the basis of race. The dean of Howard law, Charles Hamilton Houston, became his mentor and instilled in him the passion to advocate for the oppressed and voiceless. Marshall's first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray. He later became the chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where he fought for racial equality by taking on challenging cases to end state-sponsored discrimination like Brown v. Board of Education. This landmark case ended the legal basis for segregation in the U.S.

In 1965, Marshall was appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He went on to win 14 of the 19 cases that he argued before the Supreme Court for the government. In 1967, he became the first African-American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court where he served until his retirement until 1991.

Douglas Wilder is the first African-American in the United States to be elected as governor of a state, serving Virginia from 1990-1994. Also, he was the first Black senator in Virginia and first African American to win election to statewide office.

As a student at Howard University School of Law, he met with other influential politicians such as the future mayor of Richmond, Henry L. Marsh III, and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Two years after earning his J.D. in 1959, he started his legal practice Wilder, Gregory and Associates. Wilder notably went the extra mile to personally involve himself as a lawyer into his civil rights cases by refusing to sit in segregated courtrooms. Wilder was a strong force in pushing for a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and lobbied for the budget expansion of Virginia’s public works, universities, and hospitals. The grandson of slaves, Wilder found it critical to organize plans for the National Slavery Museum in Virginia. He returned to Howard University to serve as a trustee from 1993 to 2014.

Toni Morrison told her parents, “I want to be surrounded by black intellectuals,” and chose Howard University. She explored her love for drama as a member of the Howard University Players, which is the university’s oldest student-run performing arts organization. Morrison graduated in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in English and minor in classics. After getting her master’s degree in English from Cornell University, Morrison returned to Howard as an English professor for seven years. She also became involved with a writers' group while at Howard, which she has credited with starting her on the road to becoming a novelist.
 

Morrison is hailed widely as one of the world’s greatest storytellers. She exemplifies Howard University’s core value of truth as she dares to explore race, love, and even the supernatural. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her novel Beloved, which would later be adapted into a film. Since the publishing of Beloved, Morrison has been awarded numerous honors for her writing and activism, including the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented by President Barack Obama.