It started out as a week to bring awareness to the history of African Americans and has grown into a month dedicated to celebrate and honor African American people in American history.

 Black History Month is observed every February, and it is celebrated by various countries across the world. This year, Student Council is bringing the celebration to campus through informational posters in the rotunda and a slideshow with biographies that will be displayed in the cafeteria.

“Student Council has created a timeline of African American history, a slideshow that will be on the projector during lunch, bios of people, and social media graphics to bring awareness to Black History Month,” StuCo Secretary senior Kallin Brown said. “I think it needs to be celebrated and brought attention to at Liberty, and I think the history of it is very important for the understanding of our country.”

StuCo member junior Paeton Davis led the project to create a learning experience in populous areas on campus where students could be immersed with new information and learn beyond the walls of history classrooms.  

“I wanted to lead this project because I think it’s important to go more in-depth about Black history,” Davis said. “Yes, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were very influential people who definitely made a change in society, but there are countless other people we aren’t taught about.”

In the eyes of Davis, many components of African American history are not discussed in class, inhibiting students from understanding errors in the past. 

“I think if we don’t talk about and inform ourselves of the history, we are ignoring it and not acknowledging it ever happened, and even in history classes we don’t talk about it enough and we don’t study true Black history,” she said. “As an African American person, there is still so much I don’t know about my heritage, and I know this is a struggle for the majority of black students. I’m trying to spread as much knowledge as I can, but at the same time, I’m also trying to learn more myself. We have been taught the sugar-coated version of Black History and I just think it’s time that we correctly educate ourselves on the past so we can move forward in the future.”

The project has already served as a learning experience for members of StuCo who have been researching important figures and events.

“I learned so many new things during this Black History Month project,” senior Thais Fernandez said. “I learned how little we talked about numerous people, even when they did something as big as establishing an entire Protestant denomination like Richard Allen. While making the timelines, I learned about other events that happened throughout Black history, as well as how little our history classes go over significant events.”

While the formal celebration may end on Feb.28, the contributions and struggles of African-American people throughout the years make up a crucial component of U.S. history that must be commemorated every day. 

“This is important to me because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve learned about the founding fathers and or how America was built without slaves being mentioned, or any immigrants for that matter,” Davis said. “I’ve grown up learning about white men in America and thinking that black men and women didn’t serve a role in the advancement of America. I’ve grown up not really learning anything about my history, and I’ve grown up thinking if it’s not taught it doesn’t matter. And it’s the complete opposite because we weren’t taught growing up we have to educate ourselves until now. There are too many influential black men and women who aren’t talked about or known. They’ve done way too much for them to go without being recognized. If it weren’t for our unseen black heroes’ lives, today would be completely different.”