Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

On Feb. 20, 2020, the students, faculty and staff, and local community gathered in the Fred Hobdy Assembly Center on the campus of Grambling State University to hear Grammy Award winning music producer, recording artist, civil activist and actor, David Banner. Banner asked everyone to put their phones down and to just listen. He informed the crowd of mostly students that we are the only people that think that change will come in front of a camera. Informing the crowd that when people are conspiring against your life - whether it's the clan, the police or whoever it may be - they're not on Instagram, they're not on snapchat or any of these platforms. For some reason, we want to tell everyone what we're doing and think that somehow we're going to be freed. Banner asked, "Why snitch on yourself and tell them where to come find you? That doesn't make any sense!" Banner allowed the students to ask him questions at the initial start of his speech. Several students answered Black Heritage Trivia questions and received $100 bills for answering correctly. This not only made this event informative for the students, but it was also engaging for them to have open dialogue with the HBCU Alumni. He stated, "I always give people exactly what I want them to have and not what's actually happening." When he stated that he was not a Christian, several attendances took a negative stance on this statement as he began to give his view on things. However, he provided several biblical scriptures to back up his message including his favorite scripture from I Corinthians 6:19-20. Banner went on to state that we must connect the importance of education through history to make certain we engage our people in academics. He stated that he believes that HBCU's are failing our children. HBCU's are supposed to teach you how to be African again. Land Grant Colleges were created to be the cradle for the 450 years of slavery that black people (the descendants of Africans) went through he stated. Land Grant Colleges are supposed to instill in you that information that was taken away from our people - when we weren't allowed to read and our culture taken away. Today, most of the people blame stuff on our children (your generation). Banner stated, "If you are lost, then we ran off and left you! You are a direct reflection of what we did or did not teach you! So if you are lost, it is our responsibility to go and get you! Find you and help you find your way again!" David Banner thanked Grambling State University for inviting him to speak and stated that he would be back again.