Jessica Conway
This years Black History Month event took place in the Great Hall yesterday and was filled with music, poerty and inspirational speakers.
The main speaker, James McKeever spoke about how Black History Month influences many different peoples lives not just African Americans. He used many different examples of how hardships we endure now can be overcome by looking back at our past. The recent disasters in Haiti were used as an example of how slavery was not the only oppression, especially today. McKeever used different ethnicities to get his point across that African Americans were not the only ones who struggled in history; Muslims, Latinos, Asians, and even sexual orientation were all mentioned as well. The Speech was wrapped up with hope for Haiti and President Obama.
The live performance by Phil Bell is an underground band. Their performance was exotic to say the least and included singing and talking in order to get the themes across. Phil used music to provide us with how beautiful life is and how the simple things count. His stories of survival were enlightening. To hear more for yourselves the Phil Bell website is available for tickets and information on the band at www.Philbellpreformances.com.
Lastly there was a Poetry Jam in which was concluded early with a first place ribbon shared by two students, Lubna Mohammad and Joseph Kurpjuweit.
Speaker Bio
McKeever was born in the San Fernando Valley in 1964. He grew up in Pacoima where he struggled with many difficulties from drugs to poverty. One thing that showed James light in his life was the Valley Plaza Park, it gave him a job and good people to constantly be around in order to keep him out of trouble. James would Coach for the park as well as doing some community service tasks around the community. Although the park showed him a new direction to life McKeever states, “If it weren’t for community college systems I could have never gotten my degree.” He explained by the time he was in his early twenties he was already a single father struggling to keep a job thanks to the way the school systems worked around his schedule helped him in many ways.
