GFA Celebrates Black History Month
By AJ Tenser ‘23
With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent years to the forefront of the American consciousness, Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month have gained significance. However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic proves to be a limiting factor when celebrating such events both inside and outside of Greens Farms Academy.
Given the current pandemic, this year the school was unable to come together and have the Martin Luther King Day assembly in the Coyle Gym as they had in previous years. Rather than an in person event, a video was to be streamed in advisories around the upper school.
The prerecorded video included clips by Bob Whelan, the Head of School, Shanelle Henry, the Director of Equity and Inclusion, and individuals in the Upper School who helped make a difference in their own communities speaking about the significance of this year and their personal experiences. The video also included a slideshow of photos, both present and past, which showed how similar the times are.
In regards to the response from the students, Henry, one of the core contributors to the video said, “I heard feedback from some people who felt it was the best MLK Assembly that they had ever seen since they had been here at GFA.” To keep the audience engaged, “[Henry] asked the coordinators who helped put [the video] together to put themselves in [the student’s] place, if you were a young person at GFA today, what does King’s message mean to you?” As well as relating the message to be more applicable to the ones watching, having peers of the viewers speak in the assembly drew attention to the screens.
Even with the increased focus on diversity and equality, Henry thinks that we have not reached, in the words of King, “One America.” “We can say we have moved closer because we can see where we have come from,” says Henry. Henry sees the move towards a more equitable future as “a process,” and to this point, “we are all in this process together,” Henry said. “We can hopefully lead through the process with building or increasing the sense of empathy and understanding… which will then lead to activism from all kinds, not just from those who feel marginalized, but the allies as well.”
Following on the heels of Martin Luther King day is Black History Month, which originated when Carter G. Woodson created Black History Week in 1915 to acknowledge and celebrate historical figures who were African-American. Black History Week took place from February 12 through February 16, the week of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s birthdays. This eventually got expanded to the whole month of February.
Henry has a complicated relationship with Black History Month. “On the one hand, [Black History Month] confirms my identity as a black person,” Henry said. “Yet, how I have experienced Black History Month is you have 28 days to talk about the same people every year, and on March 1, we put that away and go back to business as usual, that to me has always felt disingenuous.” Along with the idea of having one month to talk about Black history, having to have a month in the first place is disappointing, but “until it is normalized and embedded in the curriculum all history, it should exist,” Henry said. “It would be ideal if [Black history] was in all conversations, embedded in the curriculum where we don’t have to pull it out, but we are not there.”
The link to the full video is here.
