My work has been published in the June 30, 2008 issue of JET Magazine. One section features several of this year’s commencement speeches by prominent African-Americans. Among them are Christopher Gardner, who was the speaker at Hampton University’s 2008 Commencement Exercises. You can check out his photo on page 19, along with a quote from his speech. Commencement quotes from Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, Tom Joyner and others were also featured.

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