Students at Mississippi State University should expect to learn a history lesson just by walking on the Drill Field in the month of February for Black History Month.
Director of the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center Maria White said informing the MSU community about black history is especially important during February.
“As the university community, students, faculty and staff stroll across the Drill Field, they will be greeted with a black history fact,” she said.
Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor, delivered a Black History Month keynote address Monday in Lee Hall. White said Kennedy brings the divisive issues that plague America to the forefront of national debate.
“His instant bestseller ‘Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word’ sparked a firestorm of national debate-sprawling across the pages of The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME and most importantly, the popular consciousness,” she said. “He is not afraid to challenge audiences to confront society’s and their own racial prejudices.”
On Thursday, the sixth annual Cultural Catwalk will be held in Lee Hall’s Bettersworth Auditorium. White said the program will showcase different cultural fashion, music and dance that abounds on campus.
“Again, it is our aim to bring awareness to the various cultures that exist on our campus,” White said.
Ra’Shada Boddie, administrative assistant of Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, said the event is about unity-American and international students coming together.
“It’s a celebration of culture altogether, not just Black History Month,” she said.
Michael Williams, assistant professor in African-American studies, will present an interactive lecture on black history in the Colvard Student Union Dawg House Feb. 10 at noon.
Senior interdisciplinary studies major Richard Slaughter, a peer counselor at the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center and a member of the Black Student Alliance, said as a peer counselor, he works with incoming freshmen and transfer students to make MSU feel a little more like home. Through different programs, they get students out of their rooms and involved on campus.
He said Black History Month affects him personally because he thinks it is a month where the world becomes more aware of African-Americans.
“I think it is a month where people become more aware of how we have contributed to the world,” he said.
History books are sprinkled with names and descriptions of African American heroes, legends and countless stories of how race affected the actions and reactions of groups of people. However, prior to the early 1900s, there was little to no documentation of the history of African-Americans.
Carter Godwin Woodson established the association for what is now known as the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1915 and then founded the Journal of Negro History. Negro History Week was a move for the nation to recognize the contributions of blacks in the nation’s history. The second week of February marks the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two figures who influenced the history of African-American people.
“I think Black History Month, in a whole, it is the history of the United States of America. It shows how far we’ve come as far as unity,” Boddie said.
She said she wants students to know the importance of Black History Month as well as the younger generation of her family, like her young niece.
“I want her to know the importance of coming together and not seeing color,” Boddie said.