In 2017, Pharrell Williams was recruited to address New York University's graduating class of 2017, and during his speech, he focused on the importance of fighting for women's rights. 

Williams, who also received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, honoris causa, from NYU, told the graduates, "Your generation is unraveling deeply entrenched laws, principals and misguided values that have held women back for far too long and, therefore, have held us all back. Imagine the possibilities when women are not held back. The world that you will live in that will be a lot better. This is the first generation that navigates with the security and confidence to treat women as equals."

No one can deliver a speech like Viola Davis. The Oscar winner didn't disappoint when she spoke to the 2012 graduating class at Providence College in Rhode Island. Although Davis was born in South Carolina, she was mainly raised in Rhode Island. 

"Your authentic self is constantly trapped under the weight of the most negative forces in this world," Viola Davis said. "And it will be an everyday battle. You know, sometimes I felt, and you will feel, that who you are is hidden away like a piece of really great jewelry that you keep in a box, and you only take it out during special occasions.  Yet your everyday persona is a type of demonic possession.  But the demons aren’t gargoyles or red-faced men with horns, but everyone else’s dreams, desires, definitions of success, greed, the pursuit of personality instead of character, the exchange of love and family, for money and possessions, entitlement with no sense of responsibility, and the most frightening demon of all, lack of purpose."

She closed the speech with "Go on and live!"

In 2018, during the school's 150th anniversary, Howard University alum Chadwick Boseman delivered a powerful commencement speech.  “When you are deciding on next steps, next jobs, next careers, further education, you should rather find purpose than a job or a career,” he told the graduates. “Purpose crosses disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history.”

He also praised activism from the students, many of whom protested just a month after a financial aid scandal where employees were accused of stealing money. Boseman said, “Many of you will leave Howard and enter systems and institutions that have a history of discrimination and marginalization. The fact that you have struggled with this university that you loved is a sign that you can use your education to improve the world that you are entering.”

Arguably one of the most famous commencement speeches in history, in 2013, President Barack Obama addressed  Morehouse College's graduating class. Obama urged the graduates to remember to be of service of others and use their knowledge to help their communities rather than seek fame and fortune. "So yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and powerful, or if you can also find time to defend the powerless," Obama said. 

He continued, "Sure, go get your MBA, or start that business, we need Black businesses out there. But ask yourself what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood. The most successful CEOs I know didn't start out intent on making money, rather, they had a vision of how their product or service would change things, and the money followed." 

Just this past week, on Mother's Day, Emmy-award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph delivered the commencement speech for the class of 2023 at Rutgers University. It was a special moment for Ralph, who was 19 when she became the youngest woman to graduate from Rutgers University.

In her powerful speech, she told the graduates, “Our country and the world took a tragic and difficult turn. Kobe died, George Floyd was killed and then the world and everything changed when COVID-19...shut down the world. But, you stayed the course, you never gave up, you kept doing. We need people who have been through something and still have so much to give and share, that’s you.”

Watch the clip above.