Arick D. Scott's Reflection

    In last week’s lecture, I can truly admit that I learned something new that is directly beneficial to me and my culture. In last week’s lecture, the speaker, Dr. Hayes-Benjamin, based her lecture around the term “scribe.” Based on my understanding of the presentation, a scribe is someone who is accountable for keeping records and files. This person, somewhat, documents history and the unraveling of historical events and times are solely dependent upon this figure. With that being said, the scribe has to be someone that is reliable and noble enough to only perform justice towards history’s keeping. An example of a 15^th century scribe, as seen in the presentation, is Jean Mielot, a European author. After interpreting the initial definition of a scribe and his/her responsibility, I became generally uninterested in what the speaker had to say. Fortunately, I continued to listen intently and realized that she happened to be naming Howard’s historical scribes. Because I am generally interested in Howard’s legacy, the topic of historical scribes became a much more interesting presentation. The speaker mentioned scribes that dated back to the beginning of Howard as an unaccredited university. She mentioned historical figures that earned their particular halls and buildings on campus through pure service and passion to the university and the African-American race. The speaker mentioned names such as; General Oliver Otis Howard, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Isabel Burns Lindsay, Alain Leroy Locke, Lulu Vere Childers , Frederick Douglass, Ira Aldridge, Louis C. Cramton, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Prudence Crandall, Phyllis Wheatley, Lucy Diggs Slowe, George Washington Carver, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charles R. Drew, and  Earnest Everett Just. These names that were mentioned are all scribes that names are the actual current names of Howard University’s buildings and dormatories.