Here come the commencement speeches and honorary degrees.
Writers, politicians, athletes and TV stars are among those who will grace Georgia’s college graduation stages in the next few weeks. These are some of the notable names who will deliver keynote addresses or receive honorary degrees this graduation season:
Antony Blinken
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will deliver remarks at a Saturday commencement for bachelor’s degree graduates at Georgia Tech.
Nominated by President Joe Biden, Blinken serves as the 71st U.S. Secretary of State. He previously was deputy secretary under former President Barack Obama from 2015 to 2017 and before that served as Obama’s principal deputy national security advisor.
Harrison Butker
Also on Saturday, Harrison Butker, Georgia Tech’s all-time leading football scorer, will speak at another commencement ceremony at his alma mater.
Butker, who plays in the NFL for the Kansas City Chiefs, kicked a game-winning field goal to secure victory in Super Bowl LVII over the Philadelphia Eagles earlier this year.
He graduated from Georgia Tech in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering.
Brad Raffensperger
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will deliver a Saturday commencement address at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville.
He will speak at a ceremony for graduates of the business and technology college.
Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, oversaw the contentious 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes. In November, Raffensperger was reelected to the position.
Gretchen Corbin
Georgia Lottery CEO Gretchen Corbin is the featured speaker for the Berry College commencement this Saturday.
The lottery provides money for Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship and pre-K educational programs.
Corbin previously served as commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and as deputy commissioner of Global Commerce and other roles at the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Anthony Ray Hinton
Credit: Emory Univeristy
Credit: Emory Univeristy
Emory University will host the writer and activist Anthony Ray Hinton for its Monday commencement ceremony.
Hinton authored the 2018 memoir “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row” about the nearly three decades he spent as an innocent man awaiting execution in Alabama for crimes he didn’t commit.
Convicted in 1986, he was released from custody in 2015 with help from the Equal Justice Initiative. He now advocates against the death penalty.
Leah Brown
University of Georgia alumna and two-time NCAA national gymnastics champion Leah Brown will give the May 12 commencement address at her alma mater.
Brown is an orthopedic surgeon. She graduated from UGA in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in genetics. In 2006, she deployed to Iraq to provide medical support during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Zac Brown
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Credit: Robb Cohen for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia-bred rocker and singer-songwriter will receive a honorary doctorate from the University of West Georgia during its spring commencement on May 13.
Brown attended the school in the late 1990s and left school to pursue music full-time.
The Zac Brown Band has won three Grammy awards.
Chris Womack
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The Southern Company president and CEO will be the commencement speaker at Clark Atlanta University on May 20. He’s the first Black man to hold the company’s top jobs in its more than 100-year history.
Nikole Hannah-Jones
Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, who created the 1619 Project as a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, will speak at Spelman College’s commencement.
The 1619 Project is now a multi-part documentary series on Hulu. Hannah-Jones is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and has won a Peabody Award.
Hannah-Jones also will receive an honorary doctor of humane letters.
Spelman’s commencement ceremony is May 21.
Tracee Ellis Ross
Credit: Richard Shotwell
Credit: Richard Shotwell
Spelman also will bestow an honorary doctorate degree of fine arts on actress and producer Tracee Ellis Ross.
Ross starred in the popular ABC show “Black-ish,” winning a 2017 Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Rainbow Johnson. She also won nine NAACP Image Awards and has been nominated for five Emmys.
She also is the executive producer and narrator of “The Hair Tales,” a documentary series about Black women and beauty.
Wes Moore
Morehouse College’s keynote speaker will be Maryland’s first Black governor, Wes Moore.
Moore’s victory in the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election made him one of just a handful of Black governors in U.S. history.
A U.S. Army veteran and author, Moore was CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation.
Morehouse also will award Moore an honorary doctorate, an honor it will also bestow posthumously to the late NBA star Bill Russell.
The commencement ceremony will take place May 21.
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