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Dear Vanguard Community, We are at the start of Black History Month. Recognized every February, Black History Month is a celebration of African American culture and the significant contributions people of African descent have made to the United States. This month serves as an important reminder of the resilience of African Americans as they endured the Middle Passage, two and a half centuries of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other forms of distress and injustice. Our goal is to engage the history —not simply to relive the past, but to learn how to become a more just, kind, careful, and civil society. By commemorating this journey from the continent of Africa to the Americas, we have an opportunity better understand our deep interconnectedness and the pursuit of truth embedded in our mission and Christian faith. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured this concept well when he wrote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963). To put this in biblical terms, “we are members one of another” (Romans 12:5). Paul insisted that though we are many, we are one body. Our shared humanity and connection to Christ bind us together, fundamentally changing how we relate to one another (Philemon 1:15). In this spirit of Christian unity, let us take time to honor our Black and African American students, faculty, and staff. We have curated a number of meaningful and fun events across campus to assist in this celebration, including our annual Black History Month Dinner. I encourage you to review the attached flyer and participate as your schedule permits. Educational Resources To help expand our appreciation of our shared history, I sincerely invite you to explore these resources:
Let us use this month as a springboard to better understand a culture that may not be our own, and may we resolve to be more deliberate and loving as we live out what it means for all of our stories to matter. Because they do! Why We Celebrate We send out communications like this because we see celebrating the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic heritage of our student body and institution as being in harmony with our Christian faith, our Pentecostal heritage, and our university mission. We seek to model a Kingdom ethic that embraces, honors, and includes every member of our community. This, we affirm, is a key part of what it means to love one another as Jesus our Lord has loved us (John 15:12).
Warmest regards, RENEA BRATHWAITE, PhD Associate Professor of Theology Atachment: Black History Month Calendar of Events |