Allen Brooks made a promise. And in December 2024, nearly four decades after first stepping onto campus, he kept it, earning his degree from Alabama A&M University at the age of 60, and honoring the wish of the person who believed in him most: his mom.
“When I would get to a point in my study to where I would be like, ‘Oh man, I’m getting fogged up studying for this exam,’ I would turn around and call [my mom]… I would just talk to her, and [when I] get off the phone, things would start clicking,” Brooks said. “I say she was with me every step of the way.”
Brooks, a native of Brewton, Alabama, walked across the graduation stage with his daughter, Brionna Washington, proudly capturing the moment. Her TikTok post of her dad beaming in cap and gown quickly went viral, surpassing 50 million views, inspiring tens of thousands. One commenter wrote, “This is exactly what I needed to see today… because it’s easy to feel discouraged when you feel like you’re behind.”
Allen’s journey to that diploma was anything but traditional. He first enrolled in Alabama A&M back in 1982 on a partial band scholarship. But academics took a back seat. “I was only committed to the band,” he admitted. “I allowed myself to make bad grades here and bad grades there… and then I had to get a real job to support myself.”
He left school in 1986, started a family, and built a life, but one thing never changed: his mom, Sarah Pearl Brooks, kept nudging him to go back. “Years later, my mom, she always would say to me, ‘I wish you would go back to school one day.’ And I said, ‘Mom, one day, I’m going to do it.’”
That “one day” came in 2020, when Allen re-enrolled. He juggled classes and full-time work, determined to finish what he started. “It was tough. The classes [were] tough. I was still working eight hours a day and going to school, but it was worth it,” he said.
In June 2024, just months before his graduation, Sarah Pearl passed away.
“When that happened, part of me was like, I was doing this for her,” Allen said. “But I switched gears and said, ‘Mom is still with me. There’s no way I’m going to stop.’ She left me right there to just cross the finish line.”
And cross it, he did, with a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies and a concentration in business management. A son’s promise kept. A mother’s dream fulfilled. And a legacy that’s still inspiring millions.
