UF’s celebration of Black History Month came to a close Monday night as students gathered to commemorate the largest Black History Month celebration in the country.
“The month of February may be over, but we should continue to celebrate our history every day,” said executive board member Greg Davis as he began the ceremony.
This year’s reception of about 100 people was interactive and entertaining, said Cecil Duffie, executive director of Black History Month.
Duffie began the event by offering a T-shirt giveaway for those who shared what they learned from Black History Month.
A slideshow with pictures of students doing everything from receiving free massages to walking down a runway for the Fashion X-Clusive show was also shown to summarize the entire month of events.
Joy Scott, a program planner for Black History Month, said the slideshow reminded her of the time it took to help plan events.
“It was very stressful at times,” she said. “But seeing it wrap up now reminded me of all the new faces I met over the past month and that my culture is part of who I am.”
Duffie said the goals of the month were not only to entertain people, but also to empower and educate through information about issues affecting black culture, such as sickle-cell disease. Duffie and his staff also aimed to collaborate with new organizations on campus more this year than in the past.
“Looking back on tonight, we have accomplished our goals by bridging the gap between other organizations,” Duffie said. “We also successfully made UF’s celebration of Black History Month the largest in the nation.”
