David Holloway

It started in 1976 when the Association for the Study of African American Life and History with the help of then U.S. President Gerald Ford made a new month-long event, Black History Month. This event was made to celebrate and spread black history.

The event which was originally made in the year 1926 was only a week long and was made in response to the often undocumented achievements of black Americans.

While Tallwood High School has tried to keep up with Black History Month with its sneaker balls and daily fun facts. A question arises, are these actions enough to truly say that Tallwood High School celebrates Black History Month?

This is a tough question because there is no truly right way to celebrate Black History Month but I still think we can come to answer and that answer for me is no, Tallwood High School is not doing enough.

To see if I was alone in my opinion I went around the school interviewing some of the Tallwood community to get a glimpse at the way my fellow community feel about the school’s treatment of the month.

The opinions of the community were, to say the least, mixed with opinions varying from “the school is doing what it can”, “they’re doing things”, and even one student admitting they didn’t realize the school celebrated the month. 

I don’t want to leave this article on a sour note where I say the school isn’t doing enough and leave providing nothing of value and contributing nothing. I will provide some fixes that I think wouldn’t be too hard to implement and would be somewhat helpful.

Play music by black artists in the morning

During the morning before the morning announcements when music is playing, we could have music by black artists playing in the hallways. This is probably the easiest thing to implement seeing as how all we need to do is change the music playlist the morning announcements use.

More decorations in the halls 

While we have some decorations on the wall, adding more is always helpful. We could have drawings made by black students on the walls. we could try and posters up for the  already existing events making them more in your face so no one can miss anything.

Have a Black History Club

One interesting idea provided by a student was to create a club that lasted for the entire month. The idea is to make a black history club that meets everyday during lion lunch where they can spend time talking about black history with a group.

I don’t believe any of these will completely change the opinions of the community and truly make the school celebrate black history month to the fullest, these really are only small changes, but I think these fixes, while small, can make a difference.

CORRECTION: a previous version of this article labels Ms. Renee Fail as a student