By Diana Avila
West African drums echoed throughout the Student Union Ballroom during the 2020 Black History Month Celebration at San Jose State.
Organizers from the MOSAIC Cross Cultural and the African-American/Black Student Success Center worked together to continue the festivity this year, after its 2019 revival.
“It’s important to celebrate this month because it reminds the people that are oppressed, that they hold a value,” African-American Studies senior Aarron Booker said.
The festivities included traditional celebrations such as “libations” which is a ceremony to communicate with ancestors with respect and purpose.
Claude Ferguson, percussionist of the Claude Ferguson Drum and Dance group performed at the ceremony, which included drumming and a spiritual chant which he repeated while walking amongst the audience.
Ferguson said if ancestors are called without any purpose or respect it can cause bad luck.
After the ritual, Ferguson expressed the importance of having a close connection with ancestors and remembering about what they have been through in the past.
Some students also shared similar ideologies as they remember the history of their ancestors.
“We have a department that has been here more than 50 years,” Booker said. “It caters to challenges . . . systemic inequities that not just African Americans face, but minorities all together, you know. We cater to the idea that fundamentally everybody has a need.”
Even though Black students make up slightly more than 3% of the university population, according to the SJSU Office of Institutional Research, some say their legacy at the university is still strong.
“I think it’s important to remember that the school at one point had a heavy African American presence on the campus,” applied mathematics senior Marcel Leath said. “I think it’s just important to kind of, like, say that we’re still here, we still contribute to this campus.”
Leath said that the African American legacy is still felt throughout the SJSU community as well as other surrounding communities.
Although the festivities focused on African American history, students from different backgrounds came to the event to celebrate and support.
“I’ve always shown a lot of love and respect for Black History Month because I grew up in West Oakland,” psychology junior Jesus Soriano said. “I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood, so my whole life that was my environment.”
Soriano said he came to the event to learn more about African American history, enjoying some good food and meeting new people.
Other students said that it’s important to celebrate and support each other as minorities.
“I think of every time we have a history month is like an opportunity to kind of focus in on a community and learn what we can from what they went through their history here in the United States in particular,” Booker said.
Faculty members addressed some of the issues that can come with only dedicating one month a year to remember and celebrate minorities.
“I think that Black history month for me has been a month where white people trump out token Black people from the past to appease us,” communication studies assistant professor Nikki Yeboah said. “It’s only for a few days and it’s only like 10 people whose names keep getting recycled.”
Yeboah said even though Black history month is a start to recognize African Americans, their history should be remembered more than one month a year.
“There is no American History without Black history,” Yeboah said. “We arrived at the same time and we’re deeply embedded in the cultural provenance that this country has at an international level.”
