By Cassidy DeStefano and Alejandro Serrano, news staff
Northeastern Black Student Association (NBSA) club members marched underneath rain and into a general body meeting at Krentzman Quadrangle last Wednesday, Feb. 24, as part of “Huskies in Hoods Week.”
“Huskies in Hoods originally started in 2012 as just a single march after the shooting of Trayvon Martin,” Tara Howard, NBSA president and a senior criminal justice and human services double major, said. Last year, the club extended its outreach event to span an entire week.
The third-annual “Huskies in Hoods” was a series of events to raise awareness of racial injustices and police brutality, according to Howard. She added that the meeting was a reflection of the march as well as the entire week.
“There are a lot of people that don’t realize that these things are still happening,” she said. “I feel like by walking through campus and chanting and drawing attention and appealing to people who had their phones out, we were getting the word out.”
The agenda commenced with a screening of a documentary about Jordan Davis, “3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets,” Monday night at the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute’s study space. Davis was fatally shot on Black Friday in 2012 by Michael Dunn at a Florida gas station. Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014, according to a Huffington Post article from Nov. 23, 2015.
“Basically, the endpoint is to bring awareness of black issues in America,” said Henoss Taddesse, NBSA campus liaison. “We feel it is very important to use the whole week to amplify our voices.”
A phototag –#TruNortheastern–was set up on Thursday to demonstrate what it is like to be a student of color on campus, according to Howard.
“Last year, we had a photo campaign about microaggression and the difficulties of being a student of color on campus,” Howard said. “Our take was to show both the negatives and the positives.”
A community is built through education and the events, according to Taddesse.
“The whole week helps grow and connect our black community, unite it with the NU community and the larger community around while educating,” he said. “Personally it made me feel great to see people from our black community and outside community join us.”
This year’s campaign closed Friday with a spoken word creative expression event at afterHOURS, an elaboration of a similar event the NBSA put on in November.
“We noticed that a lot of poetry that was done surrounded these issues,” Howard said. “Because of that, we added another event that could channel songs and everything of that nature.”
The goal of the week, she said, is to show racial inequality is a reality that transcends social media.
“I think that a lot of people just think that when it comes to a person of color being killed, it’s just a hashtag on Twitter or something that is relevant for the moment, but it’s more than that,” Howard said. “These issues are long-lasting.”
Photo by Robert Smith
