On Sunday May 9th, Hampton University's 2010 commencement exercises got off to a memorable start.  President Barack Obama delivered the Mother's Day commencement address at HU in front of 1,072 graduates and a crowd of about 12,000 relatives and friends.  The speech was also broadcast live on several TV networks nationwide.  I had the honor of being one of the photographers present to capture images of this presidential moment.  Special thanks to Yuri and the University Relations staff at Hampton for all the hard work done to make this special occasion a success.

• View President Obama's Speech (video)
• Remarks by the President (text)
• Photo gallery

On Mother’s Day ’08, Hampton University held their 138th Annual Commencement Exercises on the campus at Armstrong Stadium. This year’s speaker was Christopher Gardner, whose life story was the made into the movie “Pursuit of Happyness” w/ Will Smith.

This was a very emotional speech for him, since his daughter Jacintha was among the graduates that day… the first in his family to graduate from college. President Harvey made it a “two-fer” by presenting Gardner with an honorary doctorate degree. My cousin Greg also graduated Sunday with his MBA… Congratulations!

Slideshow (runtime 1:07)

Commencement speaker Christopher Gardner