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Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Volume 162 No. 5 SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
ALINA TA | SPARTAN DAILY
Glenna Brambill-Williams, elder at San José Word of Christian Center and a lifetime member of the Silicon Valley chapter of the NAACP, sings during ceremony.
City honors Black History Month By Alina Ta EXECUTIVE EDITOR
San José City Council and Black community members from all around the Bay Area gathered at City Hall to celebrate Black History Month. C ommunity memb ers gathered inside the City Hall Rotunda on Friday evening to recognize Black community members from San José. Glenna Brambill-Williams, who is an elder at San José Word of Christian Center and a lifetime member of the Silicon Valley chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), sang the first stanza of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” during the middle of the ceremony. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was a hymn written as a poem in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson, the leader of the NAACP, and is also commonly known as “The Black National Anthem,” according to a webpage from NAACP. “So lift every voice and sing / Till earth and heaven ring,” Brambill-Williams sang. “Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
/ Let it resound, loud as the rolling sea.” National Black History Month was founded by Carter G. Woodson, a historian, author, and the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, when he started the first Nero History Week in February 1926, according to a webpage from the Library of Congress. The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is currently known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History External, according to the same source. Sixty years later in 1986, Congress passed a law designating February as “National Black (AfroAmerican) History Month,” according to the Library of Congress. Branbill-Williams said it is a pivotal moment to see the city of San José recognize Black History Month and the Black Community. Mayor Matt Mahan said community members and visitors can see the strength of the city’s faith communities, the city’s small business
sector, the community’s cultural contribution, and the community’s fight for civil rights for racial justice by walking by the Tommie Smith and John Carlos statues at SJSU. The Tommie Smith and John Carlos statues, also known
It is the Black woman that is oftentimes the Black backbone of everything that we do as people and that’s why (society), to Black women have been crucial. Reverend Jethroe Moore II President of San José Silicon Valley NAACP
as the Victory Salute or the Olympic Black Power statues,
was a statue built in 2005, according to a webpage from SJSU. The statue depicts the moment when Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two AfricanAmerican athletes, and SJSU alums, performed the Black Power salute during the medal ceremony at the Olympics on Oct. 16, 1968, according to the same source. Mahan said he is proud of San José’s Black community and that the community has left its mark on the nation and has made it a better, more just and more conscious place. He also said the Black community in San José has been shrinking over time. In 2000, San José had 31,349 Black community members, according to a webpage from the United States Census Bureau. In 2022, only 26,783 community members in San José were Black, according to the same source. “It’s a very, very small minority group and we don’t see that many of us until we come to several events,” BrambillWilliams said. She said it is not very common for her to see other Black people
ALINA TA | SPARTAN DAILY
San José City Council and Black community members convene inside City Hall Rotunda on Friday evening for Black History Month.
at the store or in other areas of life on a day-to-day basis. Brambill-Williams said when she was in high school, it was very common to see other Black community members in the westside and eastside of San José. “Here you don’t see that now,” she said. “It’s very, very slim slim pickings.” Reverend Jethroe Moore II, president of San José Silicon Valley NAACP, said it’s important for the Black community to be seen and recognized by the city of San José as a diverse population. Moore received the Charles (Chuck) Alexander Q u i ntes s e nt i a l S er vant Leadership Award onstage during the event. “I'm not into plaques and stuff,” Moore said. “People know I'm into doing the work and seeing the work getting done and making sure it's completed to the last most important part.” Moore said many people receive plaques and recognition, but these awards do not always mean conditions have changed. He said a community needs structural changes for everyone to succeed. “I want to see more conditions change for people of color Black people in particular and to make us (a) more wholesome community,” Moore said. Moore also said the power of the Black community does not lie in one organization, but in the power and respect that all Black men have for the community’s Black women. “It is the Black woman that is oftentimes the Black backbone of everything that we do as people and that’s why (society), to Black women have been crucial,” he said.
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