BSA Aims To Expand History Month

Distributing thousands of buttons proclaiming “Black History IS Your History,” several campus groups ushered in a month-long celebration of black students’ cultural traditions and contributions to public service yesterday.

Black Students Association (BSA) President Lawrence E. Adjah ’06 said he hopes students, faculty, and staff of all races choose to wear the buttons and participate in a series of events planned in honor of Black History Month.

“What we wanted to do is frame black history as everybody’s history, because it is,” Adjah said.

In the past, he said, mostly black students at Harvard observed Black History Month while others paid little attention to its significance.

“That’s what’s made this celebration incomplete; black people have been the main people who celebrated it,” Adjah said.

In conjunction with the month-long focus on the accomplishments of black leaders, the Black Men’s Forum (BMF) aims to highlight the current public service efforts of black students on campus and encourage more community involvement.

The group’s president, Kwame Owusu-Kesse ’06, told The Crimson he will announce today that all BMF members will be required to complete at least seven hours of community service each year.

“We, as Harvard Black men, are privileged individuals...and I truly believe it is our obligation to leverage the resources that we have to benefit others that do not have access to the ‘halls of privilege,’” Owusu-Kesse writes in an e-mail that will be sent to group members.

Owusu-Kesse will also announce the compilation of the Do Something Database, a listing of black Harvard students who already participate in community service.

“I hope it drives the Harvard black community to more action,” said Marcus G. Miller ’08, who started the project with Brandon K. Arrindell ’08 and Michael P. Anderson ’08.

Former BMF president Brandon M. Terry ’05 praised the BMF members who created the database, calling it a “brilliant idea” and a valuable asset.

“Sometimes community service is a lonely venture,” he said. “But this is like a support network for people to trade strategies and approaches.”

The BSA will sponsor open events throughout the month along with the Association of Black Harvard Women, the Anne Radcliffe Trust, the BMF, the Harvard African Students Association, the Harvard Caribbean Club, the Harvard Political Union, the Harvard Society for Black Scientists and Engineers, and the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College.

The BSA will also host a formal dance, the Renaissance Ball, on Feb. 12 at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge.

Other events include United Voices, a celebration of black musical traditions featuring the Kuumba Singers, and a joint Harvard-MIT black history cultural show, Pulse: One Beat, One World.

In addition to holding events on campus, the BSA will seek to educate students about black history by publishing a Fact of the Day on page 4 of The Crimson throughout the month.

Two years ago, then-BMF president Terry forwarded black history facts to House e-mail lists daily in February. After some students in Lowell House objected to the messages, calling them “spam,” others raised accusations of racism. The House Masters and Senior Tutor e-mailed Lowell students asking them to exercise courtesy.

Terry said yesterday that he hopes the entire campus will participate in Black History Month festivities and combat negative images of black people.

“It’s the one time in the year when people are forced to come to terms with the fact that black people are essential and at the center of history in a lot of ways,” he said.

This annual celebration of black heritage was the brainchild of a black Harvard graduate.

Carter G. Woodson ’12, the second African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, started “Negro History Week” in 1926, a tradition which evolved into Black History Month. He chose February because it is the month in which both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were born.

—Staff writer Andrew C. Esensten can be reached at esenst@fas.harvard.edu.