American: My junior year of college at Howard University, I remember being incredibly stressed about a paper for one of my courses. I rarely went to any professors’ office hours, but on October 17, I walked into the education building on our main campus.
While speaking to my professor, my phone kept going off. I apologized and told her I’d put it on silent. My partner at the time had sent no less than 10 text messages, which was odd but it felt rude to check.
Before I could worry about the messages, the front desk lady for the building poked her head into our room. She told us, “There’s an active shooter on this part of campus. We’ve locked the doors.”
The lock to my professor’s office was broken, so we huddled into the front desk lady’s office instead, where we camped out together for the next two hours. I messaged my mom. I messaged my older sister. And, in hindsight, I can now laugh at the conversation the two older women whispered about while they attempted to distract themselves. Eventually, we were given an all-clear.
