Tougaloo College 2026 Baccalaureate and Commencement Ceremonies set for May 3

JANS – Tougaloo College will hold its 2026 Baccalaureate and Commencement Ceremonies Sunday, May 3, 2026, on the historic campus. The College will honor its graduating class with two ceremonies.

BACCALAUREATE SERVICE: 8:00 a.m.; Historic Woodworth Chapel; Baccalaureate Speaker: Rev. Reginald M. Buckley, Senior Pastor, Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, Jackson, MS.

A proud alumnus of Tougaloo College, Rev. Buckley has devoted his life to servant leadership, community development, and the pursuit of social justice. Born and raised in Jackson, MS, Rev. Buckley holds a Master of Arts in English Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was recognized with a W.K. Kellogg Fellowship. He is also a member of the inaugural class of the Mississippi Black Leadership Institute.

Rev. Buckley currently serves as Senior Pastor of Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Jackson, MS, and as President of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi. His community impact includes leading the development of an 81-unit senior citizen apartment complex in the Virden Addition community and service on the boards of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., the Mississippi Baptist Seminary and Bible College, and the Program for Research on Faith, Justice and Health at the University of Houston.

Rev. Buckley has been inducted into the Tougaloo College Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the Tougaloo Meritorious Leadership Award. His return to campus as Baccalaureate speaker is a homecoming that will inspire the next generation of Tougaloo leaders.

COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY: 10:00 a.m.; Campus Green, in front of Historic Woodworth Chapel; Commencement Speaker: Demond Martin, Co-Founder & CEO, WellWithAll.

Martin is a CEO, founder, philanthropist, and investor building a new model of wellbeing rooted in the belief that where you live should never determine how long or how well you live. His journey has taken him to work in President Bill Clinton’s administration, with the Obama Foundation, and into investment company boardrooms moving billions of dollars.

After earning an MBA from Harvard Business School and spending more than two decades as a senior partner at Adage Capital Management, Martin co-founded WellWithAll, a purpose-driven health and wellness consumer packaged goods company on a mission to close health equity gaps. The WellWithAll Foundation reinvests 20 percent of the company’s profits into programs that expand access to care in the communities that need it most. Earlier in his career, Martin served as assistant to the White House Chief of Staff under President Clinton.

Martin is also the executive producer of Black Longevity, an NAACP Image Award-nominated documentary, and recently launched a $1 million prize to scale AI-powered innovation in health equity. He has served as a trustee of the Berklee College of Music, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the GRAMMY Global Venture Board, and the Obama Foundation. He holds an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree in 2023.