EASTHAMPTON — With the sun shining and spirits high, family and friends watched with joy as bagpipes led a procession of faculty, students and graduating seniors into a gigantic white tent on the center of the Williston Northampton School campus for its 177th commencement Saturday.
Speaker Pierce Freelon, a 2002 alumnus, delivered a powerful address as he encouraged the graduates to shape change in the world by finding something that has meaning to them and going after it like a “wildcat.”
Freelon is a professor, musician and social media entrepreneur who founded Blackademics, an online community for young black thinkers. He also is the front man for the jazz and hip-hop band The Beast. He has taught at North Carolina Central University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
During his speech, he divided the audience into two sections and taught them a rap that they performed in call-and-response manner.
“Williston is like paint on a palette — any picture that you want, I’m telling you that you can have it,” everyone sang.
Freelon recalled Williston during his time there as a place where he was nurtured by a community of educators, coaches and friends, and learned lessons that he said are lasting a lifetime.
But as a black student, his experiences were not all positive, he recalled.
“When I was a student, there were no faculty, coaches, staff, or even gardeners that looked like me,” Freelon said. “It could be isolating, especially the first time I heard a racist slur or had to talk with students who had a Confederate flag hanging in their room.”
He praised the late Sherrie-Ann Gordon, a 2000 alumna, who helped him and others to deal with that isolation and begin to shape change at Williston.
Gordon, he said, helped organize a student strike on Martin Luther King Day in 1999 to encourage the school to begin recognizing the holiday, and to hire more black faculty at a time when they had none.
“We got what we wanted, it took three years, and it was after I left, but she planted the seeds that produced the fruit,” Freelon said.
Freelon noted that it is important for Williston to aggressively recruit people of color as well as members of the LGBTQ community in order to create a “more diverse community with more diverse mentors.”
He then challenged the graduates to think about what they want to change in the world, the paradigms they want to shift and to “go forth and paint.”
Seniors Keilly Moncada, of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Atahomon Okaisabor, of Nigeria, said they appreciated Freelon’s speech because it applies today to the experiences of some students of color. Both women are black.
“Pierce was fantastic, he hit on everything that we have experienced here,” Moncada said. “There is still very little representation (of people of color) on the faculty, but it is good that they are trying to try” to increase that.
Senior Roya Mostafavi of Amherst said she was impressed with Freelon’s address. “I thought that this speech was phenomenal. He took a heavy topic and made it accessible and relatable,” she said.
Mostafavi plans to attend Smith College in Northampton.
Senior class speaker Harrison Winrow, of Wilton, Connecticut, began his moving address by belting out a verse of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” after which he offered a personal and moving account of how he had been placed on a psychiatric ward for a time while he was a student at Williston.
He lauded the kindness and family-like care given to him by staff and faculty and said that gave him the strength to get back on his feet.
“When I was in that hospital, I was never alone,” Winrow said through tears. “Not one day ever went by without the Williston family. Their smiles saved me.”
“I thought that speech was incredible,” said graduate Couper Gunn, of Easthampton, the captain of the Williston soccer team who will attend Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire. “I never knew that story. It was very open and moving.”
Gunn is the son of faculty member Peter Gunn, who as tradition allows, awarded his son his diploma.
Parents praised the school and the education their children received.
Igbuan Okaisabor, of Nigeria, said that his daughter Atahomon, went from a shy girl to an accomplished young woman at Williston. She is one of his three daughters to attend the school.
“I also think that my children have brought a new perspective to the school and to Easthampton,” he said. “The world is becoming a more global place and I think it is important to attract people from around the world.”
Ed Power and Donna Power, of Woburn, said that their son Connor Power plans to attend the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“He loved it here and so did I,” Donna Power said. “I am a teacher and I appreciate the way they have to really buckle down here. I think he really grew up and he is really prepared for college and living a happy, independent life.”
Head of School Robert W. Hill told the graduates that they would need both courage and humility to be open to growth and change. “We hope you are governed by respect, honesty and responsibility, values that insist you act for the common good,” he said.
There were 121 students in the senior class who graduated during the 90-minute ceremony. Annabelle Farnham, of Amherst, received the White Blazer Award given to the outstanding young woman in the senior class.