Why it’s important for Kean students to celebrate Black History Month

By Salimah McCullough | Published by March 7, 2019

When the calendar changes from January 31 to February 1, many people mark that as the official start of Black History Month. Black History Month is a month-long celebration where people acknowledge the achievements and hardships of African Americans.

In celebration of Black History Month, Kean has various events on campus giving students the opportunity to learn about the history and experience the culture of African Americans.

Dr. James Conyers, director of Africana Studies at Kean University, shared his thoughts on why we should celebrate black history month.

“Many Black Americans outside of Africa have been taught not to think of themselves as African,” said Dr. Conyers. “That in and of itself is one of the reasons why Black History Month is important.”

Black History Month is bigger than knowing just about the well-known activist and playing “black music” for 28 days.  Black History Month should be a time to celebrate the culture and reflect on the past.

“It’s the time of the year where every black person should be able to reflect on a serious level about our history and culture,” said Dr. Conyers. “…it’s during that month that black people should expand their consciousness to study who they are, what they are, where they’ve been, and where they are going.”

Knowing more about black people as a whole and learning about the history is also important when it comes to everything going on in the black community such as Black Lives Matter and racism. Black History Month gives people of all races the chance to learn about the history and culture.

“The number one issue that affects the entirety of the African American community is racism in the form of white supremacy,” said Dr. Conyers. “It affects everything that we do in all areas of activity.”

Looking at KeanWise, some will notice that there isn’t a big selection of courses to take involving African American History except for the ones that are under the Africana Studies minor. That reason being that there is a limited number of professors to teach those courses.

“Most of our courses come out of different departments, not just Africana Studies,” said Dr. Conyers. “Courses in African History aren’t being taught right now because there is no one to teach them.”

Coming next spring, there will be more courses available to take in African history outside of the minor. This gives students a bigger opportunity to take classes that teach about the history and culture of African Americans.

A new course is in the works for the next spring semester that is going to be called Music of the African American Experience. The course will be discussing music tracing back to Africa up until today’s music.

Some of the bigger events being hosted in recognition of Black History Month by the Office of Africana Studies include a lecture and film with Ms. Neomi Burch on February 19 that will talk about how to use DNA to rename yourself using African names.

If you want to know more about upcoming events that are being hosted in honor of Black History Month, you can find more information by visiting Cougarlink.com.

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