TUSKEGEE LEGACY: THE MOSEBY FAMILY BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS
and development for communities” looking at the symptoms that led to the uprising went viral and led him to become the go-to spokesperson for the community around the nation. Nick and Marilyn’s careers, relationship, and family were put under the microscope in the aftermath of Gray’s death. Detractors protested on their lawn. Marilyn received death threats calling her a “racist criminal” and calling for her to be “hung” for prosecuting the six police officers. After the trial ended in three acquittals, a hung jury and a dismissal of the remaining cases, five of the six officers attempted to sue the State’s Attorney for defamation--something that’s unheard of because of prosecutorial immunity. Nick was criticized for running in an unsuccessful bid for mayor in the midst of the turmoil. Marilyn’s career was largely defined by the Gray case. The couple were blamed for everything from a rising murder rate to low morale in the police department. Some predicted that all of the pressure would rattle them. But most didn’t realize that these graduates of Tuskegee University had been doing this kind of work all along.
In 2015, Baltimore set a precedent amidst the barrage of police killings of unarmed black men around the country. Amidst initial peaceful protesting and rioting, something happened that hadn’t happened with the then recent cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, or Eric Garner in Staten Island in New York. Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stood in front of City Hall and announced the indictment of six police officers relating to Freddie Gray’s ride in a police van where he suffered a severed spine, fractured vertebrae and crushed vocal box and died from the injuries. Marilyn became alternately the unlikely hero and villain that came out of the ashes of the spotlight on Baltimore after the medical examiner ruled Gray’s death a homicide and the grand jury chose to indict the officers. Her husband, Nick Mosby, a city councilman at the time representing the district where Gray lived and died was also thrust into the spotlight when he gathered men and pastors to walk the streets in the midst of the uprising. A news interview where he spoke about “decades of failed policies
In her last year in law school at Boston College, Nick and Marilyn got engaged. They had met at Tuskegee University. At Tuskegee Nick was studying aerospace engineering and was a popular student, having earned the title of Mr. Freshman and Mr. Sophomore. Marilyn, who came to Tuskegee on a presidential scholarship as a freshman, didn’t know anything about him. But when she did meet him, her first impression of his friends was that they were obnoxious and country. When they asked her where she was from and then asked if she knew the one person they knew from Boston, she was ready to write them off. “I’m thinking all these country guys think we know everyone in Boston,” Marilyn laughs. But the second time she met Nick in the student union they struck up a conversation that lasted for hours about life and politics and their CD collections and love for hip hop. “It felt like home because that’s what we did at home. I’m thinking ‘oh man, I like this dude.’” Nick talked about how he wanted to go back to Baltimore and be a public servant for his community. She looked at him in his Timberland boots and shorts and thought he was cute and suddenly realized that she had her first crush. Word on her crush HBCU Times 2020 Winter Issue | 39
