Before I ever set foot on Howard University’s campus, I knew about The Hilltop.
As a high school senior researching every school I applied to, a student newspaper was a requirement. So I was stalking The Hilltop on every platform before I ever became a Bison. When I finally arrived on campus and the freshman application dropped, I submitted mine immediately.
I was rejected. Womp. But before I actually knew that, the response went to my school’s spam folder. So for months, I was walking around campus bitter because I genuinely thought The Hilltop had ghosted me, not knowing I had an answer the whole time. It stung. But I applied again the summer before junior year, this time as a columnist, and it worked! From that moment forward, I was churning out stories on topics I deeply cared about, finding my niche at the intersection of social justice and pop culture.
But when my editor had to step down mid-year, I was asked to become the new opinion editor, and the adjustment was real. Leading a section I had just joined as a writer required me to grow fast, in communication, in patience and in how I showed up for other people’s work.
When senior year rolled around, I was ready, and my writers met me there. They never ran out of compelling ideas, and we really connected. I am so proud of what this section produced.
As this chapter closes, and graduation looms closer, I am grateful in ways that are hard to articulate. To Sydney and Aniyah, and my fellow editors, thank you for your support and your grace. To my writers, you made this worth it.
And I am especially grateful for the columns themselves. In a political climate that grows more suppressive by the day, the opinion section exists to do something radical: start conversations that matter and ask questions that make people uncomfortable. We have to exercise that right, especially now, especially at Howard.
The Hilltop has been one of the most formative experiences of my life. Zora was here. And I am extremely honored that, for a little while, so was I.
Copy edited by Daryl R. Thomas Jr.