Black History Month Assembly

2/23/2017

The Black History Month Assembly for Upper School was held on February 10. Presented by the D-E student Black Affinity Group, this year's program was presented through a collage of a PowerPoint presentation, student performances, video interviews, and powerful remarks from D-E's African-American student body.

D-E student Jahod Silver ’18 opened the assembly with a moving emotional dance performance leading to the first slide of the PowerPoint. With a clip of former President Obama's farewell address, the assembly invited everyone to keep open hearts and ears as the presentation displayed series of quotes of individual experiences of African-American students.

Through a spoken word performance, Britney Burns ’18 voiced her experience as an African-American woman. With her performance of “You're Beautiful... For a Black Girl”, Britney brought to attention the race stereotyping of a women's beauty and the skewed expectations to “work harder” as an African-American woman. Justin Gross ’18 shared his experience as an African-American man through another spoken word performance “Untitled” - bringing attention to the racial profiling and the personal moments where as a single man he was expected to represent an entire ethnic group. Justin's powerful spoken word performance won stand ovation from the crowd, clearly engaging the entire audience.

With a series of honest student responses answering the question “What is your experience as a Black student at D-E”, the audience had an opportunity to truly climb into the fellow student's skin and walk around in it to see their point of view. Director of Student Activities Maya Gunaseharan ’08 closed assembly with a remark encouraging D-E students and faculty to embrace diversity to create a community with no fear and no judgment.

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