By Nina Payne
Trinity Times Correspondent

For Black Americans Juneteenth has been honored for more than a century as “America’s second Independence Day,” but at Trinity Washington University it’s also offered an occasion to celebrate greater access to Black Studies.

June 19 was established as a federal holiday in 2021 to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, deriving its name from combining June and nineteenth.

The university created a minor in Africana/Black Studies in 2020 as an interdisciplinary approach to studying the experience of Africans and people of African descent throughout the Americas, Caribbean and Latin America and the June 19 Juneteenth holiday gave its founders a day to reflect on the program.

Those reflections began during Trinity’s 2023 spring semester when the university hosted a workshop for its students and middle schoolers from Capitol City Public Charter School in the District of Columbia entitled “Organizing for Community-Based Power: How Your Activism Can Make a Real Difference!”

The workshop not only touched on the importance of a Black Studies curriculum, but how learning these histories can impact the community.

“It is wrong to learn only one history, we have to learn every history,” Trinity sophomore Alexander Bernier said. “Black Studies is important.” The only way people in the U.S. will truly understand their own history, good and bad, is to study all of it thoroughly, “or else it will be vanished.” 

The concept of Black Studies – especially college-level curriculums such as Critical Race Theory – is being debated throughout the U.S. with some state legislatures, such as in Florida, passing laws that limit how race can be discussed in university courses.

Opponents of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs argue they reinforce racial divisions, while supporters say states that limit these curriculums are part of a campaign to maintain white supremacy.

The Florida law, passed this May, forbids public colleges from offering courses that are “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, or economic inequities.”

Trinity President Patricia McGuire has publicly criticized the new Florida law, arguing – among other things – that it is trampling on the academic freedom to discuss the true nature of race disparity in the U.S.

“If Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom, then let’s use Juneteenth this year and every year to teach the truth of our history and present realities as free people, as people who value and defend intellectual and academic integrity in the face of political repression,” McGuire said in her June 19, 2023, blog. “Let higher education be a bolder, more audacious force in support of the freedom of K-12 teachers and librarians to teach the truth as well, to resist the pernicious politics of governors and legislators who pander for votes among the Know Nothing corners of their states and this nation.”

Having access to Black Studies curriculums is important, especially in institutions of higher education like Trinity where students of color are a majority of the population, said Kimberly Monroe, assistant professor of Global Affairs at Trinity. 

Students can learn more about Trinity’s Africana Studies https://www2.trinitydc.edu/academic_program/africana-studies-minor on the university’s website.

Monroe was named “Honoree and Mentor of Adidas Honoring Black Excellence” by the German athletic apparel and footwear corporation, which encouraged holding the community-based workshop at Trinity.

The workshop conversation included taking a deep dive into the regional Metropolitan Washington histories, such as environmental racism, gentrification, and Go-Go as the soul of D.C., and focused on the importance of fully learning about the community. 

The importance of activism as empowerment was also stressed to those attending the workshop, as was defining the term “Black power” – coined by activist Kwame Ture – meaning resistance, strength within community, and the social, economical, political advancement of Black people.

The Trinity and middle school students learned how many forms of activism can connect people through resistance and how the creative expression of art can be considered a form of crusading. 

The students were able to share their own forms of artwork and self-expression that led into art as activism.

Sam Seaborn, a student from Capital City Public Charter School, shared dress designs inspired by J. Hawkins gothic and voodoo. 

Black Studies gives people a chance to learn about where they come from and let them know they deserve knowledge about the system they are living in, Seabom said, who added the workshop provided more motivation to take action in the community. After eight grader Caleb Macklin shared his poem “When Will We Be Free,” he said the workshop was a big inspiration to keep going and to keep on persisting, noting that his experiences as a Black youth has shown him that he has a societal target on his back by just existing.