UP HOME

A declaration of love and the constant journey homeward from a brilliant mind.

The first Black president of an Ivy League university, Simmons (b. 1945) chronicles her life and abundant accomplishments. Born to sharecroppers in Grapeland, Texas, the youngest of 12 children, she graduated from Dillard University and went on to earn a doctorate in romance literature from Harvard. Throughout her graceful, poised memoir, the author emphasizes the importance of education and family, especially her mother, Fannie, who sacrificed so much for her children. Simmons provides an extensive, engrossing family history of both the land they worked and the people she met along her voyage away from rural Texas to the highest rungs of academia. No matter where her journey takes her, the author always circles back to Fannie, who died during her high school years. It’s clear Simmons felt unmoored without her guidance, and this wound acts as the pivotal centerpiece for the book. The author’s decision to end the narrative at the precipice of her success may be jarring to some readers, but we can imagine Simmons enthusiastically addressing hundreds of graduating students at Smith College and Brown University, both of which she headed as president. (After a few years of retirement, she is now the president of Prairie View A&M, a historically Black college in Texas.) Simmons explains how “up home” became a phrase for traveling to Grapeland, while “down home” means returning to one’s roots or the general spirit of home. “Today,” she writes near the end of this inspiring story. “I own the land that my mother inherited from her mother….I return to marvel at how my interest in far different worlds was kindled as I wandered barefoot through the fields and meadows….I hold on to this land because ‘up home’ is a journey I will always make and ‘down home’ is a feeling I will always relish.”

As both a student and teacher, Simmons excels in her work.