February is Black History Month, and at least 10 percent of WSU’s 2017 enrollment was African-American students according to this Wright State fact sheet.
Vice President of Black Men on the Move (BMOTM) Edgar Malcom believes that Black History Month is important in informing the WSU community about Afro-American culture. “What we’ve been through and how we’ve come so far--at one point we were all segregated between black and white and now we’re able to live together and go to school together, go on transportation and to restaurants together,” he shared.
BMOTM President Kevin Jones wants people to be more informed about how African-Americans molded and developed much of today’s American culture.
“A lot of people don’t know all of the black inventions or different ideologies that have been developed into the American culture. Whether it’s peanut butter--something that everyone loves--or traffic lights. It’s just the simplest of things highlighting our own achievements and teaching us and other students about our former ancestors and how they really molded the American culture,” Jones said.
To Jones, this month is important to see the growth that has been made in such a short period of time in our country.
“Black history month to me is to help teach, celebrate and honor those before us and those who identify as African American who helped mold and develop the american culture,” Jones said, “We were segregated, we were just a third of a property at one point, and today we’ve elected our first African-American president of the United States, just seeing how much we’ve grown and how successful we’ve been so far. It’s only been since 1976 that black history month was actually a holiday, and now it’s celebrated across the whole country.”
While BMOTM does not have their own specific events for Black History Month, they will be attending many events both on and off campus including events in the BOLINGA center. BMOTM week is coming up March 4 through March 10. During that week, the group will be highlighting black influence with different events for the student body.
More information can be found on the BMOTM OrgSync page.
