Jamaican-American Vincent Bish, 21, a budding orator, is one of three Harvard students who will deliver speeches at the virtual ceremony to honour the Class of 2021, the Harvard Gazette announced yesterday.

All three were selected in a university-wide competition and also include Jordan Bliss Perry, 21, a graduating senior who will deliver the Latin Salutatory and Silvana Gómez, 21, also a graduating senior, who will deliver the senior English address.

Bish, whose parents are from Jamaica, will graduate with a master’s degree in technology, innovation, and education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A fan of oratory, he has collected several public speaking prizes at his alma mater, Trinity College, in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut.

The Gazette said that for years, he watched Harvard Commencement speeches to learn the tricks of the trade and gain inspiration. “This time, he hopes to inspire others as he delivers his graduate English address.

“I’ve watched people get up on that pulpit in front of Memorial Hall and deliver speeches that had not only moved me, but moved the world,” Bish was quoted as saying. “In watching those speeches, it’s only natural that at one point in time you think to yourself, ‘If I had the opportunity to hold the world’s attention and to say something, what would it be?’”

The publication said Bish had “already found his answer back when he first came to Harvard, walked by Wadsworth House, and saw the plaque honouring Titus, Venus, Bilhah, and Juba, four people who were enslaved by Harvard presidents Benjamin Wadsworth and Edward Holyoke in the 1700s.

“We have a duty to the past; we have a duty to the fallen; we have a duty to the slave history of Harvard,” said Bish about his decision to use his speech to pay tribute to the contributions of enslaved people to the university.

Prior to Harvard, Bish worked as an aide in the US Department of Health & Human Services and the Obama White House, and at Slack as part of its social impact team, helping companies teach incarcerated people how to code.

Working in settings as diverse as the White House, American prisons and Silicon Valley, he often found himself teaching others, which made him realise that he needed to learn more, the Gazette said.

“At the School of Education, I learned critical vocabulary and many things that would have made my work in the various arenas I have been in more rich and more efficacious,” said Bish.

Along with 12 other students, one from each master’s programme, Bish received the Harvard School of Education 2021 Intellectual Contribution Award.

In his speech, Bish also plans to call on his peers to use the Harvard degree and the privilege that comes with it to help bring dignity to people’s lives.

“I don’t think a Harvard degree is just so that the fruits of your labour are just for you,” said Bish. “I think we should have active conversations about how we can have an eye on the most vulnerable and how can we use the unique powers of this degree to make their worlds more equitable.

“How can we use this degree almost like a fulcrum or a crowbar to open doors that are otherwise closed to people who look like myself, to people of indigenous ancestries, to people who are marginalised? That what this degree can do.”