Dr. Frances “Toni” Draper, CEO and publisher of The AFRO American Newspapers chain, will receive an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins University at their commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 22.
The company’s Baltimore-based flagship publication, The AFRO, was founded in 1892 by Draper’s great-grandfather, John H. Murphy Sr. Since its inception, the newspaper has pushed for equality and economic justice for Black Americans.
Draper’s influence extends beyond the AFRO’s newsroom, however. She has served on many boards, including at Morgan State University, where she spent 24 years on the board of regents. She also was on the boards of the Y of Central Maryland, Associated Black Charities, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, and Word in Black.
This is not her first degree from Johns Hopkins University, as she earned a master’s degree in education from the school. Additionally, Draper was vice chair of Baltimore’s Literacy Foundation. She’s been named one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women three times by The Daily Record, placing her in its Circle of Excellence in 2000.
“This year’s honorary degree recipients have all had transformational impacts—on how we learn, on the city of Baltimore, on our understanding of our universe, and on the trajectory of the university itself,” said Ron Daniels, president of JHU. “We are delighted to bestow Johns Hopkins’ highest honor on these four people who share our fundamental interest in cultivating a capacity for learning, on our campuses, in Baltimore, and around the world.”
Sal Khan, founder of the nonprofit educational organization Khan Academy, will be JHU’s commencement speaker and will also receive earn an honorary degree. Khan, with degrees from Harvard and MIT, left a career in hedge funds in 2009 to commit to his burgeoning online endeavor of recording tutoring lessons and posting them on YouTube. He’d started out by tutoring his cousin over the phone, and the sessions were so helpful that other family members reached out for help. This led to the YouTube videos and eventually Khan Academy, which now has more than 170 million users in 190 countries.
The university will also award honorary degrees to Louis “Lou” J. Forster, chair of the university’s board of trustees, and to Alexander Sandor Szalay, an astrophysicist, data scientist and visionary innovator. All four will receive the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the commencement ceremony.
