VIDEO: Student Rap Explains Ichabod

That question asked in a music video created by Emporia State students that went viral last month has now been explained.

In a song titled “What is an Ichabod”, 23-year-old Washburn student Brail Watson explains how the school, founded in 1865, was accepting of blacks and women about a century before the Civil Rights Movement.

Watson, a double major in music performance whose instruments are cello and voice, graduates in the Spring of 2015 and was inspired after researching Washburn’s history.

“Being at Washburn, I respected the teachers in my department and the people I knew, but I didn’t have an overwhelming sense of pride for the school,” Watson said. “I loved it because it’s where I went, but not like I feel now.”

He says he’s received a lot of great feedback from the school.
“I’ve had some emails forwarded to me from people in the faculty, talking about how they cried when they first heard it, and they get chicken skin when they hear it, and it gives them chills down their spine. I think it’s really invoked a lot of pride in the school.”

Monique Robins, secretary in the modern languages department, said watching the film for the first time brought her to tears.
“It was so powerful and so obviously heartfelt,” Robins said. “I’m just so proud of them.”

Story by Alex Dingman / WIBW Radio