Ngeri Nnachi remembers Kiah Duggins, who died in a plane crash near D.C.
DALLAS — More time is what Ngeri Nnachi had hoped for.
“I was looking forward to actually meeting tomorrow,” said Nnachi, a Washington, D.C. native.
Last year, she collaborated in a virtual group with Kiah Duggins, an incoming professor at Howard University who was killed in Wednesday’s plane crash near Washington, D.C.
“You see things that kind of strike nationally, you don’t realize that there is a connection. So that was, like, the hardest thing for me,” Nnachi said.
Their team was doing work focusing on D.C.’s youth and gang databases.
“Just drive and motivation, you know, just insights were shared, and she just had this light in her eyes about the work that she did and the work that she was very passionate,” Nnachi said about Duggins’ character.
Saturday, Nnachi was planning to meet Duggins in person at their group’s retreat which she said has been cancelled.
Howard University, an HBCU in D.C., posted the following statement to their social media:
It is with profound sadness that the Howard University of Law and the broader Howard University community have learned of the passing of Professor Kiah Duggins, who was among those lost in the mid-air plane collision at Reagan National Airport.
Professor Duggins was set to begin a new chapter as a professor at Howard University School of Law this fall.
As a civil rights lawyer, she dedicated her career to fighting against unconstitutional policing and unjust money bail practices in Tennessee, Texas, and Washington D.C.
We ask for privacy and respect for Professor Duggins’ family, students, and colleagues during this difficult time. Plans to honor her legacy will be shared in the coming days.
“Once you’re a bison, you’re always a bison, whether you’ve been a bison for five years, three years, two hours, two days,” said Fort Worth Municipal Court Judge Raquel Brown, a Howard alum.
Brown joined the Alumni Association’s DFW President, Robin Johnson-Ford, and its Region V Chair, Jonna LaGrone Haynes. “It’s just her legacy, that we keep that legacy alive, and we keep the spirit of trailblazing for excellence alive,” said LaGrone Haynes.
“Look at the abundance of a legacy that she left,” said Johnson-Ford. “She was coming into our fall, and just to the family and her friends out there, once again, we stand on business, but we stand on love.”
Although Duggins’ time and 66 others were cut short, Nnachi still finds value in the time spent.
“I just have to be grateful for the time that we did share,” said Nnachi.
