Photo by Payton Egnew
On Feb. 7 at the Circle of Pride on Alumni Quad, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of Bradley’s Student Senate held the first annual flag raising event for the Pan-African and African American Heritage flags to celebrate Black History Month.
In 1915, Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Woodson recognized the lack of information on all the accomplishments that Black people had made, so he created the organization in hopes of bringing more acknowledgement to those achievements and stories.
On Feb. 7, 1926, Woodson created Black History Week, which was then extended to Black History Month in 1976 by president Gerald Ford to educate and celebrate Black lives throughout history.
“It was brought to my attention last year at a forum that they tried to do this [the flag raising] but it was unsuccessful, so I thought I could bring the idea back,” sophomore criminology major and event organizer Jasmyne Cooks said.
Her idea was successful, as ten Pan-African and African American Heritage flags were raised by Bradley students.
The Pan-African flag was created in 1920 by Marcus Garvey to symbolize Black liberation and to represent people of the African diaspora. The African American Heritage flag was created in 1967 by Melvin Charles and Gleason T. Jackson to improve the lack of representation during parades and the creators not connecting to the American flag as children.
Photo via Wikipedia
This flag raising directly impacts Black students at Bradley, but as a campus, it shows that all students can come together and represent things that may be underrepresented or not able to be represented. During the event, attendees described how there is diversity on campus and everyone can be comfortable expressing their diversity.
“There’s a great lack of representation for Bradley’s Black students. In my four years here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this happen,” senior psychology and sociology double major Nyla Larry said. “It’s encouraging, to say the least, to know that something like this can happen and it’s important that the underclassmen who are Black know that they can do things like this too.”
After the flags were raised, Cooks and Larry cheered, along with the other Bradley students and faculty in attendance.
“A lot of effort went into this event…It’s just good to know that things like this can happen and will be happening in the future,” Larry said. “Being students at Bradley allows you the type of privilege to be able to do things like this, especially on a community scale and on a national scale.”
