This February marks another Black History Month for everyone to celebrate the achievements and history of African Americans. The Office of Multicultural Affairs at UW-Eau Claire has organized some events for the entire campus to help participate and celebrate Black History Month.

Jasmine Rosario, a third-year marketing student, is the Black and African Event Planning Intern at OMA and said she hoped to see participation from the entire student body.

“It’s not just for multicultural students,” she said. “We’re celebrating multicultural students and black students, but we really want the whole community and our whole student body and all of our faculty there to know that we have their support because we support them.”

OMA has helped create these events throughout the month to offer more ways to celebrate Black History Month. These upcoming events are detailed more below:

Wakanda Wednesdays

Every Wednesday for the entire month of February, OMA invites students to wear pro-Black items to help celebrate Black History Month. This ongoing event allows students to participate all over campus. Rosario said the goal of this event was to show that the Black community is supported on this campus.

“Every Wednesday we encourage our students and faculty to dress up to support black excellence,” she said.

As listed on their promotional flier, some of the pro-Black items students can wear are dashikis, Black Lives Matter apparel, and truly any attire that shows support for the Black community. To celebrate this month, students are encouraged to join in any way they can to show respectful support this month.

Annual Black and Multicultural Skin Care and Hair Drive

This event is a month-long drive focused on collecting Black and multiracial hair and skin care products. All of these products are planned to be donated to foster, adopted and disadvantaged Black and biracial children.

The Black hair care industry alone was estimated to be a $2.5 billion industry in 2018, according to essence.com. OMA plans to help those who don’t have access to or the money to afford these products. Products they need include shea butter, coco butter, shea moisturizers, bonnets, durags and more.

This drive is held all month long and any donations can be turned in from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. All donations can be turned into the Office of Multicultural Affairs in Centennial 1106. 

Ndani Eau-Claire Film and Director Q&A

A viewing of “Ndani Eau-Claire” is being shown at 12:30 p.m. on February 22 in Blue Hills Lecture Hall R234 at UW-Barron County. This documentary goes into the lives of three African students who are adjusting to the pandemic and the social unrest at their home and in the United States, according to UW-Eau Claire’s website. 

After the film there will be a Q&A with the director, Kehinde Olumide Famule. Those who choose to attend the event will get to ask the director questions after watching the film. The movie can be watched online at any time, according to Famule. 

The Black Experience

The final event OMA is helping put on for Black History Month is a new event on campus. From 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on February 27 there will be a program to commend the importance of Black History Month and reflect on the activities of the past month.

The African Student Association and the Black Student Alliance came together to plan this event and invite the student body and the community to join in the festivities. The new program will include vendors from Black owned businesses and live performers, according to UW-Eau Claire’s website. 

OMA can be reached through their website, Facebook, Instagram or at their offices for more on the events going on throughout the month. Please reach out if you have any insights or questions regarding this month’s festivities.

Fisher can be reached at [email protected]