Flim Flam
Vol. 2, Issue 3 | February 16, 2026 - February 22, 2026
None of the photographs held our faces.
It was 1999.
Dozens of names had been called. The dean shook each hand, posed for the camera, smiled. Thirty-four years after an 18-year-old sat alone in a room built for two, the photographs looked exactly the same.
I left as the last award was presented, locked eyes with two other Black students on the way out.
Outside, dogwoods and crape myrtles lined the cobblestone paths. Black men in work uniforms tended the lawns while debutantes in cardigans posed for photographs.
The following week, the president of the Black student union called a meeting. She’d just turned 20.
Plaques were stacked on the table as we entered the room. Dark wood. Black metal plates with gold letters. The college seal. “The world for women.”
She called my name. I stood, watched her hands as she held the plaque out to me.
The Oprah Winfrey Award.
She did this for every Black woman in the senior class.
The Mae Jemison Award.
The Alice Walker Award.
The Angela Bassett Award.
One by one, she placed the awards in our hands, called us by name. Not who we were. But who we would become.
1965.
1999.
2026.
I wrapped that plaque carefully with every move.
Chicago. D.C. Atlanta. Doha. New York.
Medill. CNN. Al Jazeera. CBS News.
I found it tucked inside a bin in my mother’s garage last November. The engraving still sharp.
I smiled as I traced the college’s tagline: “The world for women.”
I thought of the women we’ve become.
I consider myself bound by honor to develop and uphold high standards of honesty and behavior; to strive for full intellectual and moral stature; to realize my social and academic responsibility in the community.
FEATURED PORTRAIT
Ed Dwight trained to become an astronaut in 1961 and spent the next five decades making space for Black historical figures in public monuments across the U.S. [Read more]
Browse the full archive here.
It wasn't what she saw in you. It was what you'd shown her.
Develop, uphold, strive, realize: congratulations!