Derrick Johnson is president of the nation's oldest civil rights organization and a 1993 Tougaloo alumnus. He is addressing graduates and receiving an honorary degree. Johnson was elected to lead the national organization after heading the Mississippi state conference of the NAACP. Photo by Imani Khayyam.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Tougaloo College is granting honorary degrees to the national president of NAACP, a civil rights activist and an astrophysicist.
The private college is graduating students Sunday in an outdoor ceremony on its Jackson campus.
Derrick Johnson is president of the nation's oldest civil rights organization and a 1993 Tougaloo alumnus. He is addressing graduates and receiving an honorary degree. Johnson was elected to lead the national organization after heading the Mississippi state conference of the NAACP.
The college is also honoring Flonzie Goodloe Brown-Wright, who in 1968 became a Madison County election commissioner. She was the first African-American woman to win election to public office in Mississippi since reconstruction.
Hakeem Oluseyi, a 1991 Tougaloo graduate, is being honored for his work as an astrophysics researcher and science educator.
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