Celebrating Black History Month

By Kimi Danaei, Executive Theme Editor

Raven Ramsey, Theme Editor

This year, Costa’s Black Scholars Union collaborated with Diversify our Narrative Club to continue Costa’s annual Black History Month celebrations. 

Since 1976, February has been a month dedicated to celebrating and remembering the African American figures that dedicated their lives to the Civil Rights Movement, a movement that worked to end racial discrimination and segregation. Black History Month began as a week in February, but was later expanded to the month of February in 1976, according to History.com. The month of February has been established as a month to celebrate and recognize important figures and moments in Black history. 

“Black History Month is how we remember the people who decided to stand up for themselves and others to make a change and to make us equal; some of the things we use on a regular basis were created by Black people, yet a lot of people aren’t aware,” said senior Serenity Thomas, vice president of Costa’s Black Scholars Union (BSU). “It’s important to start teaching this information to educate people who don’t know, and perhaps teach some new information to the people who do.” 

Black History Month allows people to take a step back and realize the accomplishments of Black people throughout history and the hardships they had to overcome to be recognized in society. In a survey done by USA Today in 2020, 84 percent of Black Americans said that Black people have had to endure discrimination because of the color of their skin, and 56 percent of white people agreed with this statement. 

“Growing up and going to a predominantly white school in a community like Manhattan Beach, I had my fair share of feeling like the oddball out,” said senior Cydnee Burns, president of Black Scholars Union. “If I’m being honest, celebrating Black History Month should be celebrated more in areas where there isn’t a wide presence of African Americans because the more the Black community is highlighted, the more that people become aware of the hardships we continue to go through.” 

Different themes have been allocated to each year of this celebration. Previous nationwide themes include “Be Proud of Who You Are” in 2020 and “Every Voice Matters” in 2019. This year’s theme is “Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity.” 

“Through Diversify our Narrative, I am focused on representation in education and in our daily lives as well,” Diversify our Narrative co-president Jenna Ahmed said. “It’s important to me because in Manhattan Beach we need to take the time to look at different people’s perspectives more often than we do.”

In previous years, Costa held annual assemblies in the auditorium on a Wednesday in February. Guest speakers were featured at these assemblies and select students and teachers spoke on the theme of the assembly, presented historical figures, and recited poems. Costa’s different programs, including choir and band, also played a role in these assemblies. This event has been organized and run by school psychologist and BSU faculty advisor Janet Allen since 2012. “There are many factors that go into organizing this assembly; one is researching what the nationwide theme is every year,” Allen said. “Another part is collaboration with the staff and the students. Around November, we start looking at people who might be interested in participating in an assembly and ways to celebrate Black History Month, and I talk to different students and staff to plan.” 

With COVID-19 still being a threat to the safety of students, Costa’s BSU made adjustments to its plan for this month. BSU worked with Diversify our Narrative to create a video showcasing students reading their favorite poems or playing songs by their favorite artists to highlight the accomplishments of influential Black Americans. 

“We decided to allow students to take a creative lead, being that there isn’t an assembly-like structure to the video,” Burns said. 

Diversify our Narrative Club played a large role in the production of BSU’s video. The club is led by co-presidents Hannah Gedion and Jenna Ahmed. Besides working to create a video with BSU, Diversify our Narrative Club had various meetings to discuss Black History Month. “Ms. Allen reached out to us and asked if we wanted to be part of the video BSU is making,” Gedion said. “[From this video], I hope students understand that this movement is recurring and that celebrating Black culture and intellectual prowess is not something that should be limited to a month; I also hope they learn something new about [people of color] in politics.” In the video, the clubs highlighted important current-day African American figures, such as Stacey Abrams and Amanda Gorman. Abrams served in the Georgia House of Representatives in 2006-2017 before founding the organization Fair Fight that helped register new voters in Georgia for the 2020 election, according to biography.com. Amanda Gorman is famously known for her recitation of her poem during the 2021 inauguration ceremony. Both women serve as essential figures in Black history because of their efforts and leadership during a momentous rise in the Black Lives Matter movement. 

“We will be talking about a variety of people, but we did want to highlight Amanda Gorman, a poet who had recently been in the spotlight due to her amazing speech at the inauguration,” Thomas said. 

The overall purpose of this video is to educate students on the Black community and the challenges the community goes through, as well as what the community offers, according to Burns. The video was played to students during their Social Emotional Learning (SEL) class on Wednesday. 

“Although this is going to be a year where BSU will not be holding an assembly, students should still expect an amazing event dedicated to learning more about the Black community and everything it has gone through and what it also has to offer,” Burns said. “All I can hope for is that students receive a true understanding about the importance of this time where our country highlights and celebrates the accomplishments of Black Americans.” 

The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter started trending in 2013 after Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was charged with second-degree

murder but was later acquitted and found not guilty. The hashtag became especially popular after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Their deaths led to peaceful protests for Black lives, one of which was led in Manhattan Beach by a group of former Costa students. “The Black Lives Matter movement [was] addressed in this year’s event because it has affected several African American females and males,” Allen said. “The movement is greatly misunderstood politically, which is upsetting [as] people try to stereotype the movement as something bad when it grows out of the history of police brutality and our country ignoring the [issue] until Black Lives Matter formed and became very visible.” 

In previous years, BSU’s assemblies were about 45 minutes long; this year, however, they were limited to only 20 minutes for their video. Despite this, BSU wanted to follow a similar dynamic to their annual assemblies and, therefore, incorporated short clips of students. The hope is to expose students to African American historical figures and events that are not often taught in classrooms across different departments. 

“BSU is not just for Black students at Costa,” Thomas said. “It’s here to educate everyone on Black history, our present, and our future.”