I arrived at the DMV in the late 1980s, having just finished at Ohio State University. Marion Barry was still the Mayor, and I was so glad to be a part of the second HBCU, the University of the District of Columbia. I loved my Black Politics course and African American Studies, and the many students I met from all around the globe. My grandparents raised me in Ohio, and I would visit my mom here in the area in the summers. My mother worked for the World Bank for more than 20 years, and I met her coworkers during my visit. She had friends from Africa, the Philippines, Mexico, Ireland, Germany, St Croix, and so many places. I listened to the “Quiet Storm” during those summers in high school, then went back to Ohio with my geometric short haircuts that made DC unique. There was an excitement on the campus and in the city, and we came to love it as the Mecca and the Chocolate City.
UDC in 1990 was a city within a city. The campus was regularly vibrant with the sound of go-go music, which could be heard from most cars waiting at traffic lights at every corner in the district and near campus. The international food was my favorite introduction, coming from the mainly meat-and-potatoes palette of most midwestern states. My topics of discussion were politics, music, and art. I wanted to know who produced the most art and music, and the best places to meet up to discuss it all, along with our current work, and catch a series of authors doing the same at Politics and Prose right down from UDC on Connecticut Avenue.
I was thrust into a time that whispered so much hope for any Mass Media major or otherwise. We were the children of Woodstock generational parents who had been stunted in their pursuits of the same because of Vietnam, and so many other social barriers that slowed growth in our community. I felt my ancestors with me daily. I wore Malcolm X T-shirts and accepted sorority invites to hear media correspondents at the time who looked like me, specifically, Frederica Whitfield, CNN. I felt honored to interview people like Maxine Waters and Marion Wright Edelman.
I quickly gravitated toward the campus media scene, joining the staff of the Trilogy newspaper. My first assignment was covering the stage play Sarafina at the Kennedy Center. I also completed three internships during my tenure as an undergraduate student with WUSA9, NBC4, and later, after graduation, with Black Entertainment TV in the early 2000s, which was a welcome break from my banking career.
Entertainment reporting became my entry point. I covered concerts, student theater productions with Arena Stage, and art exhibitions, all while working in banking as a wife and a mother.
But the heartbeat of UDC was activism. In 1990, the campus erupted in the Kiamsha movement—a student-led protest demanding that the administration address basic needs like library hours, which had become a daily obstacle for students juggling classes and jobs. I found myself at the intersection of reporting and participating.
The Kiamsha movement was more than a protest. It was a declaration that our voices mattered, that Black students in the nation’s capital would not be sidelined. I interviewed organizers who spoke in the cadences of Malcolm X and Angela Davis, blending history with the urgency of now. I chronicled moments of frustration—doors closed in our faces, promised reforms slow to materialize—but also moments of triumph, like the night the administration finally agreed to extend library hours and form a student advisory council.
As the campus newspaper’s entertainment reporter, I often straddled two worlds. One night I might be reviewing a sold-out play at Ford’s Theater, and another interviewing a band member at Takoma Station in Takoma Park, Maryland, during session breaks. All I had was a small notebook, a tape recorder, and a pen with permission to go on the record.
I am currently attending extended studies in addition to my graduation and bachelor’s degree in 1993. The biggest reason, of course, is to update my skills, as the digital world has certainly moved us from manual newspaper layouts to formats that can complete entire magazines and film scripts in the blink of an eye. I have been raising two brilliant children of my own while maintaining a banking career that took me completely away from my first love, media.
Social media and AI currently bring into question ethical values for journalists and all media channels. News has no doubt become sensationalized and less factual. I am also excited to be a part of the Digital Media student body, which also didn’t exist when I attended. I consider it motivational to find ways to transition with morality into this new age of media.
There were challenges. Editorial independence was a constant battle; the administration sometimes pushed back against stories they saw as too critical. I learned to stand on my ground, to double-check my facts, and fight for the integrity of our student press. I faced my own biases, too, reckoning with my position as both participant and observer. Sometimes I stayed up late, agonizing over whether my reporting amplified the movement or simply documented it. But each article, each edition of the Trilogy, felt like a step toward clarity and change.
Covering campus news in 1989 also meant engaging with the broader world. D.C. was at the forefront of national Black politics, and our campus was no exception. I had already been introduced to the world of black politics by my grandfather, who was a pastor in Ohio with ties to the Progressive National Baptist Convention. I had already met Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, Vernon Jordan, and others via my gramps, who also had me help the senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, run for his first office, as he is also from Mansfield, Ohio.
UDC gave me more than a degree; it gave me a purpose. The experience of balancing my schooling with work and family has made a critical difference in my quality of life, and it continues to do so in this chapter of my life. No matter my age or experience, I still see a clear path to my endeavors because I am a firm believer that dreams don’t stop; they just keep evolving.
First published in 1989, “The Making of a Trilogy Reporter” by Angela Thomas is republished with permission.
