As Black History Month begins, festivities produced by the Southeastern Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Multicultural and International Student Affairs commence.

The two organizations presented a Black History Month kick-off presentation. The event, titled “The Road Less Traveled”, featured NAACP and black history, a prayer and poem, and other mediums of entertainment such as liturgical dance and a trumpet number. The gathering took place in the Student Union Theatre on Feb. 4.

With around 80 students attending, “The Road Less Traveled” began with a commemoration to two recently deceased Southeastern students, Raphael Garrison and Jarrod Dumes, giving the students a moment of silence and prayer.

Sociology instructor Rebecca Hensley was the evening’s guest speaker, talking specifically on transforming Black History Month into black history year-round.

“I’m going to start by slapping us all upside the head with a radical idea and then I’m going to give us a choice, a charge and a challenge,” said Hensley. “There is no such thing as ‘black history’. In truth, there is no such thing because if we’re talking about human history, then we’re talking about all humans, aren’t we?”

Hensley, who sufficiently supports the work of the NAACP, continued by declaring white supremacy as the reasoning behind celebrating black history for a single month, saying “White folks had the power and whoever has the power in this society gets to decide what the story of that society will sound like.” Hensley then proposed the year-round resolution.

Following Hensley’s distinct speech, a PowerPoint presentation created by the NAACP featured past Civil Rights leaders and their contributions to American society through time. The presentation also included negative black incidences such as statistics displaying high African American crime rates in cities like Chicago and trendy inappropriate fashion fads.

Senior Fashion Merchandising major and President of the Southeastern Chapter of the NAACP, Shawndreka Gatlin, explained the actions being taken by the NAACP to counter present trends.

“We are currently working with the National Chapter to establish some new goals and things that they’d like to implement on campus,” said Gatlin. “We have a list of things that we want to get started in either this semester or next semester. We want to have rallies and different things saying that we don’t promote or support gun violence or violence at all.”

Gatlin ended the black history presentation but not before specifically thanking the event’s chairman, Shayla Greyer, a member of the NAACP.

“For each event we have a chair just so we can get the membership more involved,” said Gatlin. “We have an executive board, but we don’t want to leave all the work up to them because eventually they’re going to graduate so we need to get our members knowing how to do these things when the executive board leaves.”

Moreover, this is not the last of Black History Month events on campus. The Office of Multicultural and International Student Affairs have created six other black history-related events listed below.

From Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, the “Library of Congress Corner: The African American Mosaic” is on being displayed on the third floor of the Sims Memorial Library.

Displayed Feb. 14 to Mar. 31 is “Notable African American Musicians and Black Musical Theater: A History” on the first floor of the Sims Memorial Library.

Coming Feb. 19, week one of “America’s Music: A Film History of Our Popular Music” starting at 6:30 p.m. in Sims Memorial Library room 240.

On Feb. 26 in D Vickers 309 at 2:00 p.m. comes “La Négritude”, a look into the movement of the same name.

Also on Feb. 26 is week two of “America’s Music: A Film History of our Popular Music” in the Sims Memorial Library room 240 at 6:30 p.m.

Lastly on Feb. 27 is “Where’s the Swag in Graphic Design?” a survey on past and present African American graphic designers, in the Hammond Regional Arts Center at 5:00 p.m.