Welcome to our 2025 Spotlights! We have REUNITED and welcome the classes of 2024 and 2025 to our hallowed grounds in person for the first time. The men of Morehouse showcased in this series are a selection [from the many] students who exemplify the quintessential Morehouse student: enterprising, audacious, inquisitive, tenacious, creative, and unapologetic. The College is shining a light from its hilltop on the scholars who will soon be carrying the torch themselves.
For Timothy Daxton Pettus, the pursuit of social justice has been ingrained in him since childhood. The 17-year-old remembers attending NAACP meetings with his mother and becoming aware of the gravity of problems facing his community.
Now at Morehouse, Pettus looks to spend the next four years honing his passion for combatting social ills and being a change agent for oppressed individuals.
Pettus graduated from Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia, where, in four years, he fought to remove a Confederate monument in downtown Decatur and worked with his peers in the Black Student Union to erect a marker near Decatur City Hall recognizing the illegal sentencing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
His efforts garnered him local and national media attention, and approval by the Georgia Historical Society to have the marker placed at the site of King’s sentencing.
“I wanted to help educate the rest of my school and community to know a part of the true history of Decatur,” he said. “We organized assemblies, wrote papers, and interviewed historical leaders to help share Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s history.”
Pettus also earned two Hometown Hero awards for being influential in helping take down the city of Decatur’s confederate monument, including one from local nonprofit organization Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights.
“As a member, we have work to empower, advocate, educate, and organize people of African descent affected by systemic racism and oppression on issues of equity in and around our community,” he said.
At Morehouse, Pettus plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and then pursue law school. He has already been accepted to the Student Bar Association with honors, passing the student bar exam with a score of 93.
Morehouse was an easy choice for Pettus as his father, uncle and godfather all attended the College and formed a lasting bond.
“I’ve always felt like part of the Morehouse family,” Pettus said. “Morehouse makes not only renaissance men, but pioneers. That’s what I intend on being, in whatever I pursue.”
Pettus plans to get involved on campus as soon as he arrives by joining the mock trial team and recruiting his peers to be actively involved in social justice initiatives, in hopes of keeping young people engaged like himself engaged in their communities.
“While we have overcome a lot, there are still injustices that continue to plague our societies,” Pettus said. “The fight of Dr. King’s generation of Morehouse men, and those both before and after, have paved the way for our success. But that fight still isn’t over, and it shouldn’t stop with my generation. For me, it truly starts with my education.”
Welcome to The House, Timothy!
