This article won honorable mention in the 2021 Michigan Interscholastic Press Association spring awards ceremony.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford named February Black History Month. Every president since then has followed suit. For many, February is a time to reflect on history and use it to better themselves for the future.
Black History Month means different things to every person who celebrates, including staff and students at Northivew. Below are a few examples.
Dion Charity:
Guidance counselor Dion Charity enjoys watching Kansas City basketball and loves being a father of three. He is also passionate about being an inspiration and leader to students and staff around him.
Growing up in the south, Charity uses his background as motivation for himself and others. Due to his family’s financial status growing up, he “didn’t like to ask for things,” which led to him using duct-tape and cardboard to repair the soles of his shoes.
“Those are just moments that I used to empower myself to keep pushing,” Charity said.
He hopes that soon teens will have more resources to learn about black history, just like he did as a teenager.
“Growing up in the south, we had African American teen programs that would give us more in-depth information than what the history books did in high school,” Charity said.
Charity encourages students to “continue to learn” by asking questions throughout their lives.
Dominic Pensin:
Senior Dominic Pensin is passionate about music, dancing, drawing and the arts in general. Pensin aspires to become a musician after he finishes school.
He grew up listening to inspiring black artists like Michael Jackson and watching movies like Beat Street. These shaped his upbringing and his love for music and dance.
Along with the arts, Pensin loves talking to new people.
“People should go out of their way to try and learn other people’s cultures and just understand where other people are coming from,” Pensin said. “Just mixed cultures, that’s the beauty of people to me.”
Pensin believes that talking to people is the best way to get involved and explore. His advice is to get out of your bubble to experience what is happening around you.
“People stay way too stuck in their world and themselves. You have to go out and expand and learn people and how everything works,” Pensin said. “It’s a beautiful world [and] people just don’t see that.”
Johnny Burress:
Johnny Burress is a football coach and staff member who loves basketball, football and baseball.
Burress finds fulfillment being a black male role model for students even though he is one of few employed at Northview.
“I enjoy receiving and giving energy to them and loving on them,” Burress said.
Burress believes Black History Month shouldn’t just be a month, because every race should be celebrated all year.
“Black History Month is more a school thing when you’re young but once you get older it doesn’t necessarily mean that much because every day we celebrate each other,” Burress said.
Lulya Ghebreweldi:
Junior Lulya Ghebreweldi was Born in Eritrea, East Africa and speaks two languages. Ghebreweldi enjoys watching movies and television shows because she likes to feel the actor’s emotions. One of her favorite series, When They See Us, she feels highlights one big moment of black history.
Ghebrewaldi believes black history should be taught more in-depth and she often wonders where the backstory and analysis is.
“We don’t learn about [black history] in school as much,” Ghebrewaldi said. “They talk about it in a period of history but we don’t actually analyze.”
As far as Black History Month goes, Ghebrewaldi believes it’s important not to forget and stop talking about black history after February is over.
“I wish people knew that Black History Month is wide spanned. It’s not something that we can only celebrate in a month,” Ghebrewaldi said.
