Howard University named its newly re-established College of Fine Arts after late alumnus Chadwick Boseman, posthumously honoring the actor’s career in the film industry.
Boseman’s last movie role was in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” according to NPR.
“When Boseman returned to campus in 2018 to serve as our commencement speaker, he called Howard a magical place,” Howard University President Wayne Frederick said in an university statement. “During his visit, I announced our plans to re-establish the College of Fine Arts, and he was filled with ideas and plans to support the effort in a powerful way.”
While Boseman attended Howard, he led a student protest against the absorption of the College of Fine Arts into the College of Arts & Sciences, and conversations to re-establish the College of Fine Arts.
Boseman graduated from the school in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Directing, according to WMBF News online. He died last year from colon cancer at the age of 43.
Boseman’s college classmate, Ta-Nehisi Coates, was a student writer for the Hilltop newspaper when Boseman and his fellow students orchestrated the protests to challenge the closing of the College of Fine Arts.
Coates recalled how Howard nurtured Boseman’s sense of the power of the arts to affect change, according to the university release. Thus, Coates said he believes it’s only fitting that the University name the re-established program after one of its most accomplished students.
Marvel Entertainment owner Walt Disney is also pledging to build a new state-of-the-art facility at the school, WMBF News online reported. The company is also planning an endowment in honor of Boseman.
