Students work to ‘drop the ball’

Dana Jamierson, African American Network Liaison, Black Student Union Adviser

Black History Month originated as Negro History Week in 1926 at Kent State University. It was founded by Carter G. Woodson and is celebrated in February to honor Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’ birthdays. The first celebration of Black History Month took place in 1970 and was finally adopted as a federal holiday in 1976. Black History Month was established to recognize and appreciate black Americans and their contribution to U.S. history as well as acknowledge the struggles, successes, and fights for equality throughout history.

Each year since Black History Month has been declared a federal holiday, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (or ASALH) assigns a theme which is endorsed by the U.S. government. According to the ASALH, this year’s theme is “Black Resistance” to “recognize the resistance of brutality, oppression, and injustice by Black communities.”

Black Student Union (BSU) adviser and African American Network Liaison Dana Jamierson has framed that theme by asking the question, “Are you resisting your own blackness?”

“I feel like we’re holding each other back from our own greatness,” Alisha Johnson said. When addressing oppression, black Americans are starting to recognize their own contributions to that oppression.

“We’re debbie downers in our own community,” Kvionna Hightower said, “We don’t want to see each other strive.”

Jamierson founded the LHS Black Student Union to advocate for black students and shed light to the fact that blackness and black history doesn’t start and stop according to a calander; it’s all year ‘round, twenty-four seven. Jamierson has worked with the students involved in the BSU and created her own theme within the organization.

“I ask my kids, ‘Have you dropped the ball?’ We all have baggage or that metaphorical ball we carry around with our history,” Jamierson said. “Now we can either pass that along and say we aren’t gonna do anything about it, that we don’t care, or we can use the tools we have and continue what our ancestors started. We have to be the ones to continue the message so progress can continue to be made everyday. “

JENNA BROWN, REPORTER

“In order to fight the resistence against ourselves we have to fight the resistance within ourselves,” Jamierson said.

The BSU has worked to incorporate the Burmese Club, the Latinx Club and white allies for this year’s Black History Month and have been planning different events in hopes to further encourage the black community to take ownership of their own progress and use the supportive resources available.