Black History Month at Tuscarora

By Sarah Kebei

During the month of February we celebrate Black History Month where we take some time to focus attention to the contributions of African Americans in the United States from every period of U.S history.  From the enslaved people brought over from Africa during the early seventeenth century, to the African Americans living in the U.S today, it is a chance to celebrate black achievement and the impact of African American culture in the past.

During this month, we are celebrating Black History Month at Tuscarora by making multiple video presentations to show during advisory over the course of this month, called “You Gotta Love Us.” The mini series of videos are composed by Mrs. Rian Vanzego along with the rest of the African American history class. 

In these videos, everything to do with black culture is being portrayed. For example, one of the short videos shown during advisory featured the librarians who had put on a fun activity centered around learning about African American history in which at the end when one has finished writing down their notes and information, they are able to trade it in for a prize. The librarians also discussed how they would be putting up  new books every week centered around the focus of  black culture on display tables for people to read and enjoy.

Also during these video presentations some students from the African American history class were asked to talk about some of their favorite black authors, poets, content creators and artists which included many well-known and famous people.

Students who are all a part of the “You Gotta Love Us” presentation were able to show off their own creativity centered around being unapologetically black. Dede Fisher, who is one of these students involved, takes on exploring her own cultured creativity through her art, which was  portrayed in the videos shown to students. This featured her paintings on her canvases, some of which she was able to show black women in their most natural form and black diaspora as a whole. 

Next up was Shaylen Rivera-Jones. Shay is an artist and designer who designs jackets and other pieces of clothing, adding a bit of ‘style’ and ‘pizzazz’’ to bring more life to just any ordinary outfits.

Last but not least, Anaiya Knight  designs and paints sneakers in her free time making her another black artist here at Tuscarora. These three students were featured to show the diversity in the black community here at Tuscarora and how every and anything is possible no matter your race. 

This also ties in to the part of the presentation video where Khari Tarpley, was seen interviewing her uncle, the mayor of Philadelphia, who touched on how when he was in highschool he didn’t have a high GPA, but that didn’t limit him from achieving the extraordinary and becoming mayor of his home town. As the month of February comes to an end we hope that students and staff were able to enjoy the presentations and learn something new about the history of black culture and people.