Saturday, Feb. 1 marked the start of Black History Month around the world. As global communities celebrate throughout the month, Wake Forest embarks on four weeks of community events, reflection and celebration honoring the Black experience.
Assistant Director of the Wake Forest Intercultural Center Jalen Shell shared that celebrating Black History Month on campus is vital to a student experience that values diversity and inclusion.
“In the Intercultural Center we value the lived experiences that make up the fiber of campus including our faculty, staff and students,” Shell said. “Dating back to the origins of the Reynolda Campus, [Wake Forest] connects back to black people. Wake Forest has made it a point to honor those that have built what we see around us today through the memorialization efforts.”
Black History Month was first celebrated as Negro History Week in 1926, and gained an overwhelming response. 50 years later, the week was transformed into Black History Month in 1976. February is now an annual celebration of the accomplishments and contributions of African Americans in American society, as well as in other countries worldwide. Wake Forest celebrates Black History Month through an array of student-organized events.
Many organizations come together to host these events, including the Intercultural Center, the Black Student Alliance (BSA) and the African and Caribbean Student Association (AfriCasa). While some events are a collaborative effort between organizations and others are unique to one group, a joint committee comes together in December to begin planning the month of student-facing activities.
Chase Clark, president of the BSA, shared that the goal when planning events is to find ideas that engage and excite the student body.
“The sky was the limit as far as creativity goes,” Clark said. “We thought about what kind of things our members usually come to and enjoy, as well as the message or story that we would like to tell through our events. It’s kind of been down to the wire ever since then with getting [events] planned, [spaces] reserved and funding for everything.”
The value of the month is expansive. It is both a time to celebrate Black culture and a call to action in the ongoing fight against racial injustice. These four weeks can prompt personal learning and reflection on our place in the ongoing story of race in America.
This month, the BSA partnered with the Intercultural Center in the First Friday cultural lunch on Feb. 7. The annual Black Professionals Forum was held in Farrell Hall on Feb. 8. AfriCasa and the BSA came together to host a Super Bowl Watch Party in the BSA lounge on Feb. 9. On Feb. 13, the BSA hosted an Educational Movie Night in their lounge, showing the movie “Love Don’t Cost a Thing.” Finally, on Feb. 24 the BSA will host “Lift Every Voice & Sing: A Musical Game Night” in their lounge.
Clark expressed the importance of students showing up to celebrate and support Wake Forest’s Black community during this month and throughout the year. Supporting underrepresented communities on our campus does not always mean springing into action – often the most desired support is a listening ear.
“In this time that is very politically divided, it’s more important than ever to put actions behind the words we are saying,” Clark said. “I think that looks like showing up and maybe not always being the loudest in the room but showing up to say ‘I see you, I support you and I see the work that you’re doing,’ whether that be work in the classroom, professionally or just the additional labor of walking around in a very homogenous space as someone that is different.”
This year’s global Black History Month theme is “African Americans and Labor,” which highlights the ways that work of all kinds intersects with the Black experience and has profound impacts on the world. While Wake Forest organizations did not base their student events around this year’s theme, it could serve as a point of reflection for students as they engage in a wide array of activities.
On a college campus that is driven by academic and career success, Clark said that to honor work as students, we must also honor rest.
“I think that so often as students, we’re put in this place of doing labor, whether that be student labor or just the labor of walking through Wake Forest as a Black student,” Clark said. “So a lot of the events that we have here are just spaces where students can engage in rest, socialize and be themselves, which isn’t a luxury that we get all the time.”
Shell echoed Clark’s statements and stressed the importance of honoring the daily and historical labor of the Black community.
“Systemically Black people have to work harder to achieve equity,” Shell said. “There is a labor to being Black and that is worth celebrating and highlighting annually and February is a specific dedication to it.”
