Greaves Hall hosted a Black History Month Celebration Feb. 23. Opening and closing the celebration were the performances by the Medasi African Dance Theatre.
With a dramatic reading of his own poem, Ernest Gibson from Frisk University, located in Tennessee, set the stage for the powerful and moving speech from Fitzgerald Heslop, who is also a student from the same school. Heslop was able to connect with the audience by moving to the floor in front of the first row of seats.
During his speech he used several black students from the audience to prove a key point by having the students line up from lightest to darkest on stage and then by asking which direction was the beginning of the line. Heslop was able to demonstrate the feeling that lighter is better.
While doing this demonstration, Heslop performed the “blue vein” test, which was used to determine whether a person could attend a university. In the “blue vein” test, if the blue vein on the wrist of a person was not easily visible, their admittance to college was denied.
This event was one of the concluding events for black history month, and sponsored by the African American Student Affairs.