Opinion by Jocelyn Ffriend 

It’s been almost two weeks, but as a Black woman and alumna of New Rochelle High School, Albert Leonard Middle School, and Davis Elementary School, I am still reverberating with the energy of the Black History Month Celebration at the high school on Saturday, February 11th, organized by the Westchester Alliance of Black School Educators (WABSE).  I am in awe of the educators, students, and parents who organized this event; the crafts and food and beverage vendors who filled the rotunda, cafeteria and other spaces; and the artists who displayed their work and performed on stage.  It was an evening of Black Cultural Excellence and Community Excellence.  It was also an evening of wonderment for me.  

I graduated in 2007, before these annual celebrations began.  Though I’ve only been inside the building to vote since I graduated, the auditorium and hallways felt so familiar, and I found myself shifting back and forth between what the experience was like now versus what it was like 16 years ago.  I realized the event was meeting a need of mine that was rarely met when I was in school – the need for authentic recognition of my culture, of Black Culture, within the public schools I attended.  The celebration was a powerful reminder of what I had been longing for – perhaps without realizing it at the time.  

Like a plant that has not been watered for a while, I drank my fill, and allowed myself to imagine what life would be if every day at NRHS included an opportunity to connect with and recognize the best parts of Black Culture/Excellence?  What would school have been like for me if my cultural experience was a central focus of the staff and curriculum on a daily basis?

In the early 1990s a group of organizers and educators established Ki Afrika Talimu Shule at St. Catherine’s Church on Lincoln Avenue.  It was a Saturday school program for Black students to be immersed in Black Culture and Excellence.  We learned dancing and drumming, made instruments, learned oral traditions, studied chess, and every aspect of our beings was fed.  The program stopped running in ‘97 or ‘98.  It is the only academic environment I’ve experienced where all of my teachers were from the same cultural background as me, where I felt fully seen, heard, and nurtured.

We are still living in a time where Black students and students of color experience more challenge than nourishment in standardized academic environments – our cultures and contributions to “civilization” are still whitewashed out of history books, out of curriculums, and out of classrooms while military recruiters wait for us outside of school walls, in the parking lots in fact.  WABSE’s Black History Celebration was a much-needed breath of fresh air, allowing attendees to have a part of themselves affirmed in an environment where often the opposite occurs.  After all, Black History is a major piece of all of our histories – we all will benefit from honoring that fact.

Keep up with WABSE by following them on instagram @wabseny or visiting their webpage www.wabseny.com.