Black history celebration draws hundreds

The Duke Ellington School of Arts Show Choir

4:35 p.m., Feb. 24, 2004--More than 450 students, staff and community members attended the Black History Month Extravaganza held at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 18, in the Multipurpose Rooms of the Trabant University Center.

The event, which began with a welcome by Kasandra Moye, director of the Center for Black Culture, was the opening ceremony to a host of events to come throughout February and beyond in commemoration of Black History Month.

The Duke Ellington School of Arts Show Choir from Washington, D.C., opened the festivities with a variation of the black national anthem, “Lift every Voice and sing,” followed by a 20-minute concert of jazz and spiritual songs.

Featured speaker Michael Eric Dyson, Avalon Professor of Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed the impact 50 years later of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark school desegregation ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education.

“The desegregation of America was critical,” Dyson, a Baptist minister and author, said. “The notion of separate but equal was ridiculous because equal resources weren’t being extended. [African Americans] had paid the full tuition but couldn’t reap the benefits of education.”

The author of bestsellers "Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur” and “I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr.,” Dyson urged members of the diverse audience not to forget America’s racial history.

“We live in the United States of Amnesia,” he said, in reference to racism in America. “What’s too painful to remember is too simple to forget.”

Michael Eric Dyson: “Affirmative action is about granting people legitimate opportunities in places where they have been unjustifiably excluded.”

Dyson also said that white women, many of whom have benefited from affirmative action, do not publicly support the policy.

“Toss your hat in our ring and acknowledge that we are in [this] together,” he said.

“Affirmative action is about granting people legitimate opportunities in places where they have been unjustifiably excluded,” Dyson said. “It isn’t about giving a shot to someone who doesn’t deserve it: Affirmative action is about giving someone a shot who does deserve it.”

Moye said she hopes UD students, in particular, understood the importance of Dyson‘s message.

“I hope that students understand that people have sacrificed for them and that they need to take full advantage of every opportunity made available,” she said. “Knowledge is power, and apathy is a sign of weakness.”

Article by Tywanda Howie, AS ’04
Photos by Kathy Atkinson

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