And that is precisely what is happening this month with the University’s celebration of Black History Month. This year’s celebration honors Edward Romain Jr., an SIUC music professor who died last May.

In 1974 SIUC began celebrating Black History Month, replacing Black History Week.

But the month means more than a celebration of one man. It is a celebration of a culture and its history with an eye on the culture’s future. The month is an opportunity for all to learn and experience a small portion of the black culture.

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No, this one-month celebration is not going to end racism or bring enlightenment that will allow an individual to embrace others in different cultures. If this were the case, we would not have needed the celebration to go for these 70 years.

The month is an opportunity to gain knowledge, and that is the primary tool that will disassemble racism’s ignorance. But that knowledge must last longer than just the day or week or month.

As one SIUC student said in 1972, ToO often we confine ourselves to enthusiastic meetings during this special week and then return to the same teaching – the same action – as before, until next year’s events. Black History Week will pass, but how will it affect our attitudes, and what will we do next?

The change in attitudes toward different cultures is growing, but at an agonizing pace. This is evidenced by the remarkable similarities between the themes of past Black History celebrations and the headlines today.

In 1972, the celebration’s keynote

speaker, W. Victor Rouse, a then newly appointed SIU Board of Trustee member, told the audience that blacks could not wait for whites to fix black problems, that the gap between black and white education was growing and that education is the tool for blacks to build their own future.

In 1977, SIUC focused on the interaction between blacks and the judicial system. Presently we fight for a solution to why so many black youth are in our prisons. In 1990, 1.3 million black males were in jail.

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In 1974, the focus was on the self-image of blacks in modern times. In just the last year, and pictured on this year’s Black History Month posters, we witnessed the Million Man March in Washington D.C., an event designed to raise the image of black men – a holy day of attonement Louis Farrakhan, the march organizer said.

As Jefferson Humphries, SIU assistant dean of students, said in 1972, Black History Week should be everybody’s week.

The problems of one culture are shared by all the cultures and require the help of all to end those problems. Glen Loury, this year’s keynote speaker said, The problem can be viewed as a minority problem, but all humans can identify with those who suffer.

If we are reduced to bantering and badgering, we do not see the failure of our civilization. We see it as a manifestation of their (that race’s) disability.

We encourage all to attend this year’s Black History Month events, one of SIUC’s best entertainment and information opportunities, offering movies, music, poetry, storytelling, variety shows and lectures. But more than the entertainment, the month offers an opportunity to interact among cultures and races, a lesson we should carry with us the other 11 months a year.