The 101-year-old American Merrill Pittman Cooper has received an (honorary) diploma from high school after 84 years. In the segregated 1930s, he was unable to complete his school career due to financial problems.
From 1934 to 1938, Cooper attended Storer College High School in West Virginia, a school for black youth founded after the American Civil War. When his single mother moved to Philadelphia, she could no longer afford the costs for her son’s remaining two years of school, so he was forced to cut his school career at age 17. Storer College closed in 1954.
Cooper went to work in Philadelphia to support his mother. After jobs in a clothing store, among other things, Cooper became one of Philadelphia’s first black streetcar drivers. Later, as a union leader, he campaigned for the rights of public transport workers in America. Still, his short school career always gnawed at him, he tells The Washington Post: ,,Time was ticking, and I thought it was probably too late to pick it up. I put it behind me and tried to make the best of it.”
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In 2018, Cooper’s son-in-law Rod Beckerink noticed during a joint visit to his father-in-law’s old school grounds that the then 97-year-old man was very disappointed that he never obtained a school diploma. Together with the West Virginia Department of Education and the Storer College alumni association, Beckerink arranged a ceremonial award for his grandfather.
On March 19, Beckerink, along with Cooper’s stepdaughters, lured the 101-year-old man to a hotel near the high school for the official ceremony on the pretext that someone wanted to interview him about his long life. It wasn’t until Cooper saw a graduation gown and cap hanging in his hotel room that the penny dropped.
Beckerink explained to Cooper what was going to happen, after which he almost cried, he tells The Washington Post† “I could never have imagined that this would happen.” He may no longer have to go to school for it, but the 101-year-old man is still very proud of it. “I can’t remember a better day. It may have taken a while, but I’m glad I finally have a diploma.”
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