But it quickly became apparent you\u2019d get a pastry either way, because the point was to start a conversation with the steady stream of people of all races stopping by.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/20190201_BlackHistoryMonth_Kickoff_012.jpg\")
February is Black History Month, and multiple events and programs are scheduled at Furman to celebrate.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a big baseball fan, so I got the first African-American to play major league baseball,\u201d Andrew Wynkoop \u201920, a psychology major from Durham, North Carolina, said. \u201cThat\u2019s an easy one (answer: the late Jackie Robinson, who would have been 100 on Jan. 31<\/a>). And then the other one was what does NAACP stand for, but I\u2019ll be honest \u2014 I didn\u2019t know a lot of those on there.\u201d<\/p>\n Wynkoop is part of the Center for Inclusive Communities\u2019 Dins Dialogue Series<\/a>, which provides a forum for the exchange and evaluation of ideas to foster a campus environment of inclusion, but that wasn\u2019t why he stopped. He stopped because some of the people there were his friends.<\/p>\n \u201cI think (Black History Month) is a really good thing, especially on a college campus and especially at a predominantly white institution,\u201d he said. \u201cI think having a whole month of this on Furman\u2019s campus is important so the entire student body gets to see this perspective and these students\u2019 experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n RJ Rogers \u201920, a sociology and education studies major from Greenville, knew the answers to all of the above questions as well as another that landed much closer to home: Who is Joseph Vaughn? Many who stopped didn\u2019t know that Vaughn was Furman\u2019s first African-American student. Rogers wishes more students did.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important to see who has helped us get to where we are at this university and who has paved the way and made the initial sacrifice for us to be here,\u201d said Rogers, who is African-American. \u201cIt allows you to appreciate where you are and to not take for granted the opportunity that you do have.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked why she visited the table, Delanie McCoy \u201920, a health sciences major from Chicago, said, \u201cI\u2019m here to celebrate all the black history in America, being that I am an African-American woman, and to uplift my community and support the different organizations on campus. It makes me really happy that people celebrate their own culture, whatever organization it is.\u201d<\/p>\n Rogers said he\u2019d like to see a world where black history and culture is celebrated year-round, but Black History Month is a start.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see your friends come together,\u201d he said. \u201cThey smile, they laugh, they play their music that\u2019s related to their culture. It\u2019s just celebration of your culture, and the masses can see that. That, I think, is dope when you feel as though you\u2019re not in the spotlight enough for positive reasons. To be in the spotlight for the positive things that you bring to society, that, to me, is what it\u2019s for.\u201d<\/p>\n Furman\u2019s Center for Inclusive Communities will celebrate Black History Month in a variety of ways throughout February, including the Founders Day Banquet at Hartness Pavilion on Feb. 10, Black History Trivia Night on Feb. 13 at The Paddock and An Evening with Monica Bell: The Black Alumni Experience and What Came Next on Feb. 20 at Hartness.<\/p>\n For more information, contact Manager of the Center for Inclusive Communities Deborah Allen at Deborah.allen@furman.edu<\/a> or visit the Center for Inclusive Communities<\/a> in the Trone Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February is Black History Month, and Furman got the celebration started Friday morning on the front steps of the Trone Student Center with music, an informational table and free pastries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,70,28,21,48,22,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-education","category-health-sciences","category-psychology","category-sociology","category-top-four-news-2nd-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}