It would have been the largest-ever private gift to a historically Black college or university. $237 million — far beyond the recipient’s endowment. The money was promised by a 30-year-old who had recounted his rise from a childhood in foster care to becoming, as he put it, Texas’ “youngest African American industrial hemp producer.”
And so, the first weekend of May, Florida A&M University celebrated Gregory Gerami’s extraordinary contribution with all the necessary pomp. He spoke at commencement. Regalia-clad administrators posed with a jumbo check. Gerami even assured the audience that “the money is in the bank.”
