Blacks have lost interest in being involved with Black History Month.
The JWH Eason Civil Rights Museum & Research Center kicked off Black History Month during the first week of February with a public forum on civil rights in Florida from 1887-1960.
This was a great way to set the tone for Black History Month and get people in the community involved in learning history that is often left out of the textbooks.
The forum included panel discussions, monologues, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and a film festival.
Unfortunately, if the JWH Eason Civil Rights Museum & Research forum set the tone for Black History Month, this would be a very disappointing celebration because it had an extremely poor turn out.
The JWH Eason Civil Rights Museum & Research Center is located in the “South Side” of Tallahassee, which is a predominately black community and there was a very small percentage of blacks supporting the events.
One of the few white presenters at the JWH Eason Civil Rights Museum & Research Forum Maj. Joe Christen, a JROTC instructor at James S. Rickards High School, discussed the accomplishments of the Buffalo Soldiers.
Christen said, “I am disappointed about the turn out, this was my first year participating in the event and I didn’t know what to expect.”
Christen who is an instructor at the predominately black high school said it is hard to get the majority of his black students to be interested in learning about their history.
He has noticed that his students are more concerned with what is going on in the music industry and on television and this may be why they lost the interest to be involved and learn about their history.
But some events had no supporters and others had one to five people.
It’s definitely better to educate at least one person than not reach one at all, but what does it say for all the blacks who had the opportunity to come to this event but didn’t?
With it being Black History Month and the location of these events, I anticipated seeing many blacks participating in these activities. It was discouraging to see the terrible result of these events that would inform blacks about their past.
It is important for blacks to be involved in Black History Month and events all year long that deal with the empowerment of black people.
Knowledge is power and with out blacks will not succeed in the United States.
For these events to have such a poor turn out, it is fair to say that blacks are not interested in being involved in activities that are designed to help them.
Sarita Fleurantin is a junior public relations student from Fort Lauderdale . She can be reached at sarita.fleurantin@yahoo.com