Photo Essay | April 25, 2018
Is there a singular Black experience at NU?
First-year students Symone Jackson, Sannah Boyd and Salina Tsegai embrace in a group hug, on April 24, 2018, inside of Northwestern University’s Technological Institute. Although the event,”Real Talk: Fragmentation in the Black Community”, was meant to highlight the issues within the Black community at NU, it turned into a space for Black students to highlight their “blackness” and support for each other.
“Real Talk” is a series of dialogues hosted by FMO’s first-year executive board. This event,”Real Talk: Fragmentation in the Black Community”, was an opportunity to dialogue about the various divisions and fragments in the Black community at Northwestern.
Our Black is Beautiful!
Mari Gashaw, Freshman Executive Board
“Real Talk” board members Nelson Okunlola and Taylor Bolding engage with the growing crowd before the room change. The event was planned by the Freshman Executive Board of NU’s Black student alliance “For Members Only” and was initially held in a small classroom before being moved to a bigger venue in Lecture Room 2.
After the room change, facilitator Robert Brown, Director of Social Justice Education at Northwestern University, begins an exercise meant to establish the issues (listed behind him) within the Black community at NU.
This “Real Talk” event was meant to be a safe space for Black students to voice both their struggles and triumphs within the community, while featuring voices and identities that may be normally silenced on NU’s campus.
Rohan Gupta, a mixed-race first year student at NU, reflecting during one of the individual exercises of the night. For some students, this event served as a space for reflection, as they contemplated their personal experience within and outside of the Black community at NU.
First-year student-athlete Earnest Brown and first-year student Emma Evans, are seen discussing the misconceptions found between Black student-athletes and non-athletes on campus.Students were able to voice their frustrations within the community to their peers.
First-year student Joseph Miller breaking out into dance. The conclusion of the event turned the often glum Technological Institute into a space of “Black Joy”.
Honey Media Collective 