On April 24, the annual Black Alumni/ae of MIT (BAMIT) Black Graduate Celebration was held virtually to celebrate the Class of 2021. The speakers included Patrick Gerdes ’84, BAMIT program chair and BGC chair; MIT President L. Rafael Reif; MIT Alumni Association CEO Whitney Espich; poet AudreyRose Wooden ’21; William Jackson MBA ’21, co-president of the Black Graduate Student Association; Danielle Geathers ’22, president of the MIT Undergraduate Association; and Holly M. Carter PhD ’77, BAMIT president.

The keynote address for the ceremony—the text of which appears below—was delivered by Adriane Brown SM ’91, who earned her master’s in management from MIT as a Sloan Fellow and is a managing partner at Flying Fish Ventures in Seattle.

"Unfinished Business: Remarks to the Black Graduates of 2021," Slice of MIT, 18 June 2021