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74-Year-Old Graduate Says: Don’t Ever Quit |
| By
Rebecca K. Maggard |
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Dec 17, 2002 |
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For 74 year-old Naomi Brown, walking across the stage during UT's fall commencement symbolizes the end of a 20-year conquest and the beginning of a bright future as a professional playwright. Commencement is Saturday, Dec. 21, at 10 a.m. in Savage Hall.
Brown, who grew up on a Mississippi plantation, will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in individualized program with a concentration in theater with a focus on writing from University College. Her 11 children, 22 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren will be there to cheer her on.
She plans to use her degree to write (professionally) and hopes to publish the 16 plays she has already written. “I’ve learned so much about writing and how to do it correctly from the professors at UT. They were very supportive throughout the years. It’s been wonderful,” said Brown.
Her pursuit of the degree began in 1980, but family health issues, often made it necessary to put her classes on hold. During this time, Brown made a promise to her terminally ill daughter, Nadine, that she would finish college.
Even though Brown has not yet been published, she is no stranger to the stage. In 1997, her play, Ella Weed’s Plantation, was read by actors from the New York Dramatists Guild at its Workshop Theater on the Broadway stage. “We didn’t have money for publicity, so we put flyers in windows, and sure enough, about 300 people came to watch my play. It was thrilling,” Brown remembers. The play was also performed locally at UT’s Scott Park Campus in 1998. According to Brown, the inspiration for her work comes from childhood memories of life on a rural Mississippi plantation as a sharecropper’s daughter and her everyday experiences.
In addition to being a playwright, she is also an outreach worker for the Toledo branch of the National Caucus for Black Age. Her advice for anyone thinking about going to college is this, “Go after what ever you want to do, don’t ever quit. Just keeping going, because you will get there eventually.”
Brown will be among the 1,849 candidates for degrees from the University’s seven colleges during Saturday’s ceremonies, including those who finished classes in August.
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