The Black Students Association meets every Tuesday of the academic school year at 5:00 pm in Teachers College 101. This is an organization open to anyone.
The Black Student Association sang while carrying signs down McKinley Avenue Tuesday to celebrate the beginning of Black History Month.
BSA organized the "Celebration Pride March" to kick off events.
"This is the first march," Sarah Mitchell, BSA president, said. "This is the first year it was on a Tuesday, which is the same day as our meetings."
Mitchell, a senior urban planning and development major, who has been a member of BSA since her freshman year, said she was excited to participate in the march.
"I love it," she said. "It means the world to me."
Before the march, students listened to a 1965 speech by Malcolm X, while his pictured was portrayed on the screen in the Teacher's College room 101.
The students later grabbed their signs and headed out the door toward the L.A. Pittenger Student Center. They walked down McKinley Avenue. Some students joined in the march as it continued down the street. BSA members sang Kirk Franklin songs and "Lean on Me."
Junior Terrance Campbell said he joined the march because he is proud of who he is.
"It's part of my heritage," Campbell said.
However, some students, who had never attended a BSA meeting, marched with the group. For her acting class, freshman Amanda Barley is required to attend two multicultural events. She heard about the march from a classmate and decided to go.
"It's been interesting," she said. "I had fun listening to Malcolm X's speech. I had never heard it before. It helped me take on a different view."
BSA's meeting reconvened in Cardinal Hall with an inspirational speech from Derick Virgil, director of the Multicultural Center. Virgil made everyone repeat after him.
"I can believe, therefore I can achieve," he said.
Virgil encouraged students to pursue the career of their choice, while always keeping in mind that they're special.
"Don't take for granted the freedoms we have today," Virgil said.
He read passages from "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass, "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau and "Theme from English B" from Langston Hughes. All the passages told how the authors felt about slavery and of how they knew they would one day be free.
"Black history is American history," Virgil said.
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