At Homecoming, Howard Alumni Are Excited and Anxious for Harris

The H.B.C.U. celebrated its centennial homecoming this weekend, with many partygoers holding their breath for the school’s famous alumna, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the election’s homestretch.

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Howard University, known to its alumni as “The Mecca,” was hosting a week of events that brought thousands of alumni to its campus.

As Vice President Kamala Harris fired up voters in Detroit and Atlanta this weekend, some of her most fervent backers were just two miles from her home in the District of Columbia, where her alma mater, Howard University, celebrated its 100th homecoming.

The historically Black college, known to its alumni as “The Mecca,” was hosting a week of events bringing thousands of alumni from all over the country to its campus for parties and a concert before its marquee football game. Ms. Harris did not attend this year, campaigning instead in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia while avoiding the complicated security logistics of taking a sitting vice president and presidential candidate to a major event.

ImageInga Willis, a state representative from Georgia and a Howard alumna, showed her support for Vice President Kamala Harris.Credit…Cheriss May for The New York Times

But on and off campus, excitement for the prospect of the nation’s first Black woman — and H.B.C.U. graduate — as president was palpable. Students posed for photos with cardboard cutouts of Ms. Harris’s face at a booth on the university’s main yard. Vendors selling T-shirts with Ms. Harris’s photo and noteworthy quotations lined Georgia Avenue, the main street leading to Howard’s campus. After the annual parade, the Harris campaign hosted alumni at a rally for her.

Yet in the final weeks of the presidential race, the vice president’s candidacy is also the subject of much anxiety. While most alumni said they were overjoyed to see one of their own heading a presidential ticket, they were eyeing the razor-thin margins of the race nervously. It has spurred even more to scramble to organize on her behalf.

“I am itching with excitement deep inside for our fellow Bison, who is atop the ticket for the most powerful position in the most amazing country in the world,” Christina Weaver Jackson, the host of a “Bison for Kamala” fund-raiser at her home in the District of Columbia, told its attendees on Thursday. “I’m also very nervous.”

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