Ohio University Black Graduate Student Association put on a live museum with prose and speeches to honor Black History Month.
As part of Ohio University Black Graduate Student Association’s live museum for Black History Month, Ohio University alumna Patricia Thomas stood in period clothing describing Miss Jane’s tumultuous escape from slavery.
That event began at 2 p.m. and ran until 6 p.m., featuring performance pieces every hour that brought the voices of Martin Luther King Jr., Miss Jane Pittman, Huey Newton and Mary McLeod Bethune to the third floor atrium of Baker University Center.
Thomas said that OUBGSA contacted her to perform an excerpt from the book Escape of Jane.
After her detailing of Miss Jane’s journey to freedom through the Underground Railroad, Thomas and a group of students danced to a Mavis Staples’ song broadcasted from the speakers.
“I am happy to be doing a service for the university and all bodies of the university,” Thomas said.
Saba Zewdu, a first-year graduate student in international developmental studies, was grateful for the event.
“I love it — just the fact that they’re bringing awareness to Black History Month right in the middle of Baker,” said Zewdu, who complained the month was often “overlooked.”
The idea for a live museum came from president of OUBGSA Christian Johnson, a second-year graduate student in recreation management. Johnson said the historically black college, Kentucky State University, where she did her undergraduate studies, put together something similar.
Students could peruse paintings between performances, along with historical facts of prominent figures that were set up around the makeshift stage. At the last minute, OUBGSA was able to borrow art from a local artist and collector, Tanya Thompson.
This event has only been in planning since the end of January, in part because OUBGSA has only been in existence since December of 2014.
Even though the planning period was short, Johnson said that the vision they held for the event went through a couple of rapid changes.
“If you think about a wax museum, there are famous people and they have some type of board next to them that has facts. We wanted to bring the wax museum to life,” Johnson said about the original plan.
The idea of giving history a voice stayed true, but the image was momentarily derailed when they saw that the amount of participants was smaller than anticipated.
“We made a last minute decision to just have features at the beginning of each hour,” Johnson said.
Toward the end, Johnson said she was pleased with how the event was turning out, saying that at its peak, there were around 30 students in the atrium.
“Because the event is new, is different, we did not expect much traffic,” Johnson said. “However, with this (the event) being in a public space we’re hoping that even if you’re just traveling down the escalator, you hear something that may stick with you about black history.”Baker holds OUBGSA’s live museum for Black History Month
@mcappy13
ml540312@ohio.edu
