JESSICA COLON
Staff Writer
On Feb. 28, the Black Student Union held their closing ceremony in regard to the celebration of Black History Month.
Over the past month, several event stook place in the celebration of Black History Month such as a redefined beauty pageant, a comedian, poetry workshop and a hypnotist.
With the combined effort of members of the Black Student Union they created the main theme, “Why we…” for the month. The ending of that sentence was replaced throughout the month with “remember,” “laugh,” “write” and “celebrate,” and an event corresponded with each verb ending that was to be remembered.
“Our overall point was that there is a reason we, the black community, do what we do,” said the president of Black Student Union, Jillian Hanesworth.
As a special guest for three events, speaker Erica Gault shared her poem “Qualified” and received a standing ovation afterwards.
“The most memorable part of the event was Erica Gault speaking. Her poem, “Qualified,” was phenomenal and she truly is a talented speaker,” said freshman childhood education major Rebecca Kress.
“Our most popular event was the hypnotist, Chris Jones. There were about 70 people there and it was hilarious,” said Hanesworth.
During the closing ceremony Gault shared where Black History Month started, accomplishments of those of African descent and why we celebrate Black History Month based on the stories and struggles that brought everyone to where they are today. She also mentioned that we should remember and carry history with us to celebrate in the future.
“The most memorable thing that I took away from the event was the speech by Erica Gault, about our society and how mass media affects us in ways that, without analyzing, one cannot focus much attention to,” said freshman social work major Tanisha Morrison.
Black history month isn’t a celebration for a specific race; it’s for everyone.
“The thing that stood out the most is that as the month progressed, we started seeing people of every race at our events. We always stress that you don’t have to be black to be a part of BSU, and I think people are finally getting that,” said Hanesworth.
With the combination of the closing ceremony for black history month and the opening ceremony of women’s history month, it brought a variety of people together to celebrate. Some individuals took away important messages from the event since they’re part of both organizations on campus.
“I learned that communities that are seemingly separate can come together in the best ways to celebrate,” said Kress.
One thing that was stressed the most is that it doesn’t have to be a dedicated month in order to celebrate special occasions that occurred throughout time.
“I hope people learned that it doesn’t have to be black history month in order to laugh, write, remember and celebrate, black history is American history, so everything we did was celebrating that,” said Hanesworth.