A Harvard graduate’s convocation speech is being called one of the most powerful and heartfelt graduation moments of all time.
Donovan Livingston performed spoken-word poetry during last week’s ceremony at the Harvard graduate school of education.
The speech, titled “Lift Off,” describes the challenges that African-Americans have faced seeking education.
“It came into my life at a time when I needed it most. I was in middle school, an awkward time for a lot of us, and I was really trying to find a way to express myself and I kind of touched on that in the piece in the seventh grade. I had a teacher whose class I was in. I was kind of rambunctious. I was talkative. I actually had a talkative comment on my report card in that class. My parents didn’t like that too much, but my teacher really saw fit to make sure that she helped me harness all that extra energy that I had. And I started doing speech and debate, prose poetry, things like that to really find a voice and I just kind of stuck with it ever since.”
A full video of the speech was posted on the school’s Facebook page Wednesday.
As of this Tuesday it has ten million views and more than 200,000 shares.
