Harriet Frink-Davis remembers her first time at N.C. A&T State University’s annual homecoming vividly. She had never seen so many Black people dressed up in one place.
She was 12 years old, and her family traveled from Southport in Brunswick County to see her cousin play in the band. It was cold as she stood outside World War Memorial Stadium, observing the crowd in fine coats with fur collars, women with leather gloves and hats, men in stunning suits.
“It was eye-opening,” Frink-Davis said. “It was like, ‘What is this place?”
She didn’t know then she would become an Aggie herself, graduating in 1975 and going on to work there for decades.
This year, Frink-Davis will return to World War Memorial Stadium and A&T’s campus to celebrate the school’s 100th homecoming. She’ll be in good company, with the university estimating 200,000 visitors for the week-long celebration.
“It’s a feeling you can’t describe to people,” she said. “They just have to experience it.”
First celebrated in 1926, A&T’s homecoming has come to be known as the Greatest Homecoming on Earth, or GHOE. But the signature annual celebration of the nation’s largest historically Black college or university (HBCU) hasn’t always been welcomed by those outside of the city’s Black community.
“Early on, alumni felt the city did not embrace and welcome homecoming,” said Frink-Davis. “I don’t think they understood or knew what it was.”
This year is different, said Mayor Marikay Abuzuaiter. The celebrations officially began Sunday and culminate in the big parade and football game Oct. 31. But the energy in the city has been building for months.
Area hotels are sold out. Tickets to the game went in less than an hour. Parking decks will be cast in blue lights, and shop signs all over the city welcome Aggie nation.
“Greensboro is embracing this, I think, in many ways,” Abuzuaiter said. “It’s going to be a busy week, and I’m excited for it.”
Building a Reputation
At the school’s first homecoming, the Aggies lost to Hampton University 14-6. It was 1926, and A&T was following a wave of HBCUs across the country that had begun hosting homecomings.
The football game was played on Saturday, Nov. 18, at Cone Athletic Park, which was torn down in the 1950s.
That first year, the team was known as the Bulldogs, now the school’s official mascot. The name may have started as an urban legend of a loose bulldog who attacked a referee during a game, said James R. Stewart, the university’s archives and special collections librarian and an Aggie himself.
“It did make us sound tougher,” Stewart said.
The following year, the game was played at World War Memorial Stadium, marking the first time Black people were allowed to use the facility.
“It’s fitting that we own the stadium today,” Stewart said.
The early years of homecoming included a football game and social events, as it does to this day. By 1931, the tradition of Miss A&T, the school’s female ambassador for the year, had been established.
“It was a way to welcome women back to campus,” Stewart said. “Women weren’t allowed to apply for bachelor’s degrees then.”
By 1936, newspapers were calling A&T’s homecoming “one of the most elaborate celebrations at a colored institution.”
“We already had a reputation as one of the better homecomings to attend,” Stewart said.
By the end of the decade, newspapers were covering the parade, Miss A&T, the game, and the band. Over the years, the event grew in size and significance from about 5,000 people in 1936 to 20,000 in 1951. By 1971, there were 20,000 people at the game alone.
“Every year, people would say this is gonna be the biggest ever,” Stewart said.
This year, A&T’s F.D. Bluford Library is hosting an exhibit featuring artifacts from past homecomings donated by alumni.
By the 1970s, the homecoming celebration began to transcend A&T and even HBCUs, becoming a celebration of Black culture and excellence. Aretha Franklin performed at a homecoming event at the Greensboro Coliseum in 1971 and Funkadelic in 1973. Public Enemy rocked homecoming in 1989, the same year their anthem “Fight the Power” appeared in Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. Queen Latifah performed at A&T in 1990, the year she released her debut album, All Hail the Queen. Snoop Dogg and Common headlined in 2000, by which time hip-hop had gone from an ascendant genre to the center of mainstream culture. Rappers 2 Chainz (2018), 21 Savage (2019), and Ty Dolla $ign (2021) all followed.
A&T’s homecoming came to be one of the biggest economic drivers for Greensboro, rivaling the international draw of the High Point Furniture Market.
It’s like the Super Bowl and Coachella combined, said Crystal W. Boyce, associate vice chancellor for alumni relations.
“The volume of people that are coming and the economic impact that it’s anticipated to have is on the level of those events,” Boyce said. “And it’s in Greensboro.”
Boyce first came to A&T as a student in 2003. In 2006, she was crowned Miss A&T. She still has the suit she wore in the parade 20 years ago.
“Now I’m in a place where I am blessed to plan the centennial,” Boyce said.
Some of the world’s largest corporations are sponsors of this year’s event, Boyce said, from Google and Disney to Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. The university has also partnered with multiple hotels and has held ongoing meetings with the city and county for months.
“I think there’s more support now,” Boyce said. “We’ve been able to share expectations, to unify, to ensure logistics and safety is prioritized.”
That wasn’t always the case.
In a city as historically racially divided as Greensboro, the huge crowds for homecoming were often met with wariness at best and hostility at worst. That’s not an uncommon hurdle for HBCUs, said Tulani Salahu-Din, the curator of language and literature at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“During homecoming, you see African Americans gather en masse,” Salahu-Din said. “There is no other time or place where you can see African Americans gather in such large numbers and it not be seen as a threat to white America.”
Changing Minds
For the Black community, HBCU homecomings have historically been safe spaces, like extended family reunions. Even those who didn’t attend the universities feel a sense of belonging.
“It’s a place where you feel total acceptance,” Salahu-Din said. “You can be yourself, you can be who you are. You do feel like you’re among family.”
But many on the outside continue to view these gatherings with suspicion.
In years past, local news outlets often described crimes in East Greensboro in relation to their proximity to A&T’s campus. That extended to homecoming. This year, as organizers planned for what is expected to be the largest event on record, they pointed out the racial disparity.
“I understand residents wanting reassurance about safety, and those concerns deserve thoughtful answers grounded in facts,” Greensboro City Councilmember Cecile Crawford, an Aggie, posted on her Facebook. “But predictions of a huge increase in violence should be supported by evidence, rather than speculation or racial stereotypes about who will be celebrating.”
Abuzuaiter, who has been on city council since 2011, echoed Crawford’s sentiments.
“What bothers me is the stigma that GHOE always brings crime,” Abuzuaiter said. “That is not true…. I hate that a lot of times [crime] gets blamed on GHOE.”
In the past, Abuzuaiter said, when crime happened during homecoming, it was often blamed on the university. But Abuzuaiter believes the university has always worked to keep the events safe.
“The problems that have happened were at events that were not sanctioned by the university and parties that were not sanctioned or got way out of hand,” Abuzuaiter said.
Frink-Davis, who worked at A&T for 22 years, said she’s seen the changes firsthand. When she became alumni director in 2000, the university didn’t have contractual partnerships with hotels. In fact, they would price gouge, she said. During those years, Frink-Davis met with former city councilmember and the city’s first Black mayor, Yvonne Johnson, and former assistant city manager Ben Brown.
“We met to talk about the power and influence we had monetarily with the city,” Frink-Davis said.
As she worked with city and county officials, they warmed to the occasion, she said. They opened up the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, now First Horizon Coliseum, for annual homecoming events. They started a vendor pavilion inside World War Memorial Stadium and partnered to have city buses transport alumni to and from partnering hotels.
“I think it’s changed,” Frink-Davis said. She remembers the first time Friendly Center and the Four Seasons Mall put up banners celebrating GHOE.
“I used to say in those meetings that we want to be respected and have the carpet rolled out for our graduates just like you do for the ACC,” Frink-Davis said.
As the city came to embrace GHOE, so too did the rest of the world. And in 2000, it earned its now famous moniker: the Greatest Homecoming on Earth.
A Sense of Pride
Frink-Davis was working as A&T’s alumni director when she met with a graphic artist from Winston-Salem who asked about doing advertising for the university. He wanted to promote homecoming, Frink-Davis said, and asked about her experience as a student and alumna.
“He asked me, ‘What do you think makes your homecoming any different from other HBCUs?’” Frink-Davis said. “And I said, ‘Well, it’s just the greatest homecoming on Earth.’”
A few days later, the artist returned with a sketch of a globe and, emblazoned below it, her own description.
“Afterwards, the university voted to adopt it as our theme forever,” Frink-Davis said.
Soon, alumni were calling homecoming “GHOE” for short.
A generation later, Frink-Davis said homecoming still evokes that same joy and wonder she experienced decades ago. Her two daughters, Jillian Davis-Morgan and Jennifer Davis, both attended A&T and plan on celebrating homecoming again this year.
“I remember the floats,” Jennifer said. “I just thought that was really cool.”
Jillian, who graduated in 1999, remembers going to the football game every year as a child because her mom had season tickets. She even rode on one of the floats as a child.
“I remember cheering and marching in the parade,” said Jillian, who was a cheerleader for the school. “There was a sense of pride, camaraderie, and excitement. I was proud to be a part of it.”
Time and time again, Aggies mention this intangible feeling of nostalgia, welcoming, and joy centered around homecoming.
“The energy is something that is unmatched,” Jennifer said.
It isn’t just about the game or the parade, she said. It’s about the pride in the school and everything that it took to make it to this 100th-year milestone. She thinks about the school through segregation, the sit-ins, during the pandemic, and its significance as the largest HBCU in the country today.
“I think it’s important to celebrate that every year,” Jennifer said. “It’s about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. I hope they continue it for another 100 years and beyond.”
