Maryland students weigh in on UMD’s Black History Month celebration
University of Maryland students question the university’s performance in promoting Black History Month events. (svetolk/iStock)
The University of Maryland hosted its third annual Black History Month (BHM) Read-a-Thon on Feb. 17. For three hours, faculty, staff and students could listen to readings of passages and quotes from Black authors, leaders and innovators, according to the event calendar from the School of Architecture.
The event saw a high of ten viewers when looking at the chat replay on the YouTube channel UMDLibraries.
Black University of Maryland students question the university’s performance in promoting Black History Month events.
Atem Fontem, a junior majoring in computer science, said that UMD could do better with promoting Black History Month events.
“I feel like other than the students themselves talking about it... they haven’t done enough because I haven’t really been that much aware about it,” Fontem said.
Daniel Owens, a senior majoring in psychology and philosophy, believes that the cause lies deeper as to why UMD hasn’t been promoting Black History Month events as much as the Nyumburu Cultural Center or other Black organizations.
“They (UMD) don’t really care that much. Sure, they’re supposedly big on diversity, but...the only group of people that I know that acknowledge Black History Month in UMD is Black Terps,” Owens said.
The Nyumburu Cultural Center and other Black organizations have had a wide array of Black History Month events including Juke Joint, Family Feud Night and the General Board Meetings of Black Terp organizations.
With a bigger turnout at those events, according to Instagram posts and stories from Nyumburu and Black Terp organizations, I was curious to know if Nyumburu should take the lead for campus wide promotion and planning of Black History Month events?
Owens responded by saying that they should because “who better to know about Black history than the Black people themselves.”
“I’m not saying we should gatekeep Black history...but the vast majority of this college is not doing a good job at it and Nyumburu is the only one who seems to care about it,” he said.
Anna Brobbey-Mensah, a junior majoring in information science, said that Nyumburu shouldn’t take the lead because that wouldn’t be fair.
“I find it unfair that Nyumburu would have to bear all the responsibilities when the university should take responsibility as well,” Brobbey-Mensah said.
Throughout the three interviews, a common thread was that aside from Nyumburu and Black Terp org events, there has been a lack of promotion on the side of the University of Maryland.
When asked about ways UMD could improve awareness of Black History Month and its events, Brobbey-Mensah, Fontem and Owens said that flier distribution, talking to professors and emails are all ways that could improve awareness of BHM events.
“There’s a lot of things that they (UMD) can do, but the question is do they really care enough to do it?” Owens said.