Keith Motley, vice chancellor of student affairs, gave a rousing speech at the opening of the Office of the Student Trustee’s celebration of Black History Month, which took place in the Ryan Lounge on Friday, February 27. The five-hour event was organized and sponsored by the UMB Student Senate. It served as a coming together of the university’s African American community, a celebration of the accomplishments of UMB’s black demographic while urging the creation of stronger leadership within it, and an exhibition of some of its brightest artistic talents.
Following his welcoming speech, Motley handed the podium over to city councilor Chuck Turner. Turner made the most of his opportunity to address the large audience and called for greater leadership and initiative among black youth. “We are all part of a living history,” mused Turner. “The choices we make and the actions we take today are creating the collective history that will be looked back on. Each and every one of us is a part of that creative process.
“We might choose to play [our part] in different ways, some of us might choose to drop back and say that we’re not really going to do much, but the reality is that you’re still creating ‘HIStory’ or ‘HERstory’… your story, because each and every thing you do is creating an impression on the world around you.”
Turner recalled the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his activism against the Vietnam War. “Dr. King left Boston with a PhD, a wife, and all kinds of credentials. He went south and could have lived a very easy life, but he chose to take up responsibility.”
Turner further pointed out King’s work with the Southern Christian Leadership Council to help eliminate segregation and grant voting rights to blacks, as well as his later work in the northern states that focused on dealing with institutional racism and hypocrisy.
Turner went on to note, “In 1967, a very significant thing happened, and that is that he looked at the issue of Vietnam, and he said to himself that the truth is that the oppression that’s happening in Vietnam of the Vietnamese people by us is as heinous as the oppression of people of African descent in this country.
“And he spoke out, and people said to him, ‘No, Martin, don’t say that, you’re going to upset all our friends,’ and that he shouldn’t be speaking out about Vietnam as a Negro leader who wasn’t supposed to be rallying about foreign policy. But the reality is that he still maintained very aptly that you couldn’t just look away from injustice, nor keep your mouth shut when you saw injustice.”
Turner concluded by drawing comparisons between the situation in the United States during the Vietnam War and the allocation of tax payer money for that war, as well as the current situation with money being taken out of education, healthcare and social security to instead be spent on defense contracts (rather than soldiers’ pay and veterans’ benefits) and corporate subsidies.
“Half of the money in our budget,” Turner lamented, “is spent on…’defense’…and the other half is spent on all the social programs that we have. Last year, $50 billion was spent on education, $350 billion was spent on defense, and yet last September, when we had troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat situations, the government said, ‘We don’t have enough money to pay the troops $200 a month.'” Turner wanted to use facts such as these as catalysts for inspiring leadership and desire to inspire change within the hearts of UMB’s black students and the student body in general.
The theme of leadership, integrity, and commitment to social change resonated just as strongly in the two speeches made by Student Trustee Jamal Brathwaite and National Conference for Community and Justice Chairman Robert Lewis Jr.
Lewis got the greatest crowd response of the night, with his urging of the audience to stand and announce that they will lead and make their actions count in struggles against injustice.
The rest of the night was devoted to entertainment, featuring the UMB student body’s best black talents.
First was a stunning display of martial arts skill by Fredson Gomes, a College of Management sophomore who is vying to become the first representative of the nation of Cape Verde to win an Olympic gold medal this summer. The following featured acts included Latin Mix Dancing (a combination of Salsa and Merengue dancing in pairs) by Casa Latina; traditional Haitian dancing by Simard Pierre and Tahina Barlatier of the Haitian American Society; poetry by students Erica Monteiro, Johnine Simpson, Mohammed Sillah, and Africana Studies Professor Aminah Pilgrim; African dancing by the African Hut Club; and a fashion show by designer Neidine Lynch. The event lasted from 7pm until midnight.