³Ô¹ÏÍø

Feb. 28, 2025

When ³Ô¹ÏÍø student Eugene Anekwe went home to Windsor, Ontario for fall reading week he had a couple of things on his to-do list. The first was to get his wisdom teeth removed. The second was to work on an election analysis paper for his second-year U.S. Government class.  

Little did Anekwe know the assignment would lead to standing on stage with now-President Donald Trump and meetings with presidential candidate Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. 

Anekwe was born in the United States and he retained dual citizenship after his family moved to Windsor in his youth. With easy access to the electoral swing state of Michigan from his hometown, Anekwe planned to spend his reading week attending some of the political events happening in Detroit leading up to November’s presidential election. He would use his experiences as fodder for his class assignment, while participating in the historic election as a first-time voter. 

The day after his wisdom tooth extraction and with his mouth packed full of gauze, Anekwe “went undercover” to a Trump rally at Huntington Place Convention Centre in Detroit adorned in “Make America Great Again” merchandise that was being distributed at the event. He spoke with reporters and attendees and began documenting the rally on social media.  

While standing near the back of the auditorium, Anekwe was approached by a member of the campaign security team.  

“Did they see what I was posting on Instagram?” Anekwe recalls thinking at the time. “Are they going to kick me out?”   

He was instead escorted to a new spot at the rally – on stage, right behind the podium, along with others who had been handpicked from the crowd. “The diversity on stage resembled the Detroit population, but I can assure you that that was not the case in the audience,” he says.  

The next day, Anekwe headed to a Harris campaign event at Detroit’s Western International High School. There, he had the chance to speak with Harris supporters, members of her campaign team and even the vice president herself.  

“I got to meet her face to face,” says Anekwe. “I got to shake her hand and have a conversation with her. That was a really special moment for me.” 

Anekwe identifies with Harris’ history. Both were born in historically black cities and moved to Canada when they were young. Harris attended college in Montreal before transferring to Howard University in Washington, D.C. Anekwe was born in Galveston, Texas, the birthplace of the Juneteenth holiday that commemorates the day Black Americans in Texas were freed from slavery, more than two years after the emancipation proclamation was declared.    

With more than enough material for his assignment, Anekwe was about to return to ³Ô¹ÏÍø when he received a phone call from a member of Harris’ campaign staff inviting him to another event in North Carolina, this one headlined by former President Barack Obama. 

Anekwe spent several minutes speaking with Obama at a post-event meet and greet. 

“My first reaction was, he is so tall!” says Anekwe. “It was incredible to realize that these are real people who you can meet, talk to and shake hands with.” 

Anekwe has wanted to become a judge ever since he learned in school about the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended segregation in the United States.  

He notes that long before Obama's election as the first Black president of the United States, he served as the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review.  

“I'm sure he had way more challenges than I ever faced,” says Anekwe. “If he can do it with the challenges of growing up Black in the 1960s, I'll be OK.” 

Since his political adventure in the U.S., Anekwe has returned to his studies as a Political Science and French double-degree student at ³Ô¹ÏÍø and his volunteer role as vice-president member liaison of the ³Ô¹ÏÍø Black Student Association. 

“³Ô¹ÏÍø has been the most welcoming place I've ever been,” says Anekwe. “We have a great Black Student Association that works hard to create programming for Black students.”  

He also keeps busy as a Residence Life don, a member of ³Ô¹ÏÍø’s drumline, a ³Ô¹ÏÍø Arts Scholar and a member of the where students argue the law in case competitions. Just this month he founded the , an organization that encourages Black undergraduate students to pursue careers in law.  

“The only barrier is the amount of work you put in,” Anekwe says. “The support we have at ³Ô¹ÏÍø really creates an environment where you can work toward your goals and achieve them.”