Black History Month is considered honorable by our community here at Ridgeview High School. The Black Student Union community strongly recognizes the importance of this month by doing events on campus. These events included a spirit week and games. The games will be held during spirit week at lunch. They will be having uno, connect four, and many more games at the quad. Not only will they be offering games, DJ Kaosk will be promoting black artists as well. BSU is also partnering with Del Oro and West to have a 90’s skate night in celebration of Black History Month.
In the second week of February, the BSU committee is planning on doing a spirit week February 13th through the 16th for Black History Month. Tuesday is bring no bag day, Wednesday is wear pink, Thursday is dress as your favorite decade, and Friday is Rep the Culture. For Rep the Culture day students wore green, red, yellow, and black. Johnson explains that having a spirit week like this helps bring awareness to all of our indigenous routes. BSU Vice President Erykah Johnson says, “ It’s more of an honorable month and thankful month for me. It helps me to remember activists and role models.” Role models such as Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and many others helped carry the recognition and devotion by fighting for equality.
BSU club president Danielle Johnson says, “ It takes time to celebrate all the different things black people have gone through as a community.” Celebrating these achievements at school could be through featuring diaries from people that fought for equality and activities during lunch. Not only does this month provide opportunities to celebrate hard earned achievements, but it also provides the opportunity to teach all the history behind it.
However, Ridgeview students feel that Black History is not taught or recognized enough in classrooms. BSU member Amari Amey explains, “ We could incorporate it more into our classrooms by talking about it in more classes than just history.” Although this history is mostly covered in our required history courses, it would also be beneficial to read journals or diaries in english classes. This makes it more talked about in more classes and throughout the school. It is important that students feel that they are confident in knowing how Black History Month came about and the history that stands behind it.
An annual Black History Parade is being held on February 25th, downtown Bakersfield. Ridgeview students will be participating in this parade to learn more about black history and celebrate equality today. Jameson Powell states, “ It’s very important and symbolizes our culture and it’s important for us to learn about it.” Powell also explains that he celebrates Black History Month by researching and learning more about this history.
