Fresh beignets covered in powdered sugar, jeopardy about African American history, authentic Louisiana Creole gumbo, an interactive calendar highlighting historical figures, and homemade cookies from a local Black female business owner. If many of the celebrations on campus throughout Black History Month this February seem different from past years, it’s because they are.
Black History Month, which takes place every February, honors and celebrates African American culture, history, and people. On campus, Black History Month is planned every year by the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) team — a group of eight faculty and staff members led by Director of DEIJ Ms. Valissa Thomas.
While BSU and the DEIJ team planned lunch activities, DEIJ lessons, and Chapel talks in past years, they aimed to “revamp” how Bishop’s celebrated Black History Month on campus this year, according to Ehiosa Bello (‘25), one of the co-leaders of BSU.
“One of the aspects about programming for history and heritage months is that it is important to do something new every year,” Ms. Thomas explained. “Last year, we did a DEIJ lesson and we kind of kept it at that. But this year, we wanted to be a little bit more activity-based and collaborative.”
Specifically, BSU and the DEIJ team focused on implementing two main changes: making the celebrations interactive with students and collaborating with local Black-owned businesses that were focused on doing good in their communities.
“We wanted to make the activities on campus this year feel more open for everyone to learn, something that’s spontaneous and really fun,” Ms. Thomas said. “We also thought about how we could connect and partner with community organizations. That was something that the student [BSU] leaders wanted to do.”
First, to make the celebration more engaging and interactive, BSU and the DEIJ team planned activities during lunch that directly tested students’ knowledge of African American historical figures and culture. One day, for example, BSU hosted a game of jeopardy on the quad about Black history. On another day, BSU had printout games, word scrambles, and music match games about Black cultural figures.
“It was important to all of us in BSU that we made our activities engaging for students because we really want everyone to learn and celebrate all the parts of Black culture and history, and the best way for that to happen is to engage students through things like fun, interactive games and quizzes,” Ehiosa said.
Ms. Thomas also explained that BSU hoped to make Black History Month more engaging this year by creating an interactive calendar, which she sent to the student body in an email on February 7th. The calendar signaled which days BSU had planned activities or partnered with local businesses during lunch.
For days with nothing planned, the interactive calendar shared links to specific historical and culture figures, movements, and events to help educate students further on Black history. Lastly, the interactive calendar followed a weekly theme for each of February’s four weeks: “Foundations and Key Figures” for the first week, “Art, Culture, and Storytelling” for the second week, “Activism and Resistance” for the third week, and “Celebrating Achievements” for the final week.
Along with making the on-campus celebrations and activities more engaging and interactive, BSU and the DEIJ team collaborated with two local Black-owned businesses: AJ’s Creole Cuisine and Maya’s Cookies.
Riley Ross (‘26), a co-leader of BSU, explained that BSU has wanted to collaborate with restaurants for a long time, and credits Ms. Thomas’ strong initiative to making their ideas a reality this year. “Having Black-owned restaurants come to Bishop’s was really important to us this year because food is a great way for the whole school community to experience an important part of Black culture,” Riley reflected.
First, on Thursday, February 20th, BSU handed out fresh beignets from AJ’s Creole Cuisine for every student during Middle School and Upper School lunch. Additionally, they worked with the kitchen staff to serve authentic gumbo — a staple of Louisiana Creole cuisine — for lunch that day.
Ehiosa explained that BSU had been inspired in large part by the success of the on-campus Lunar New Year celebrations every January — specifically the cultural meals served during lunches throughout the week of Lunar New Year celebrations. “We realized that food is such a great way to expose students to an important part of our culture, and knew we had to integrate that into our planning,” Ehiosa said.
Then, on Monday, February 24th, BSU and the DEIJ team worked with Maya’s cookies, a Black female owned and operated business, to give homemade cookies to students during Middle School and Upper School milk break.
“We wanted to partner with Maya’s Cookies specifically because she does a lot of giving back and fundraising in her community. So we thought it was important to recognize her service in addition to the business itself,” Ms. Thomas explained.
Reflecting on the revamped on-campus Black History Month celebrations throughout this February, Riley and Ehiosa were pleased with the response thus far.
“It feels like students have really enjoyed trying the food and engaging with our programming. It felt more exciting and engaging this year for sure,” Riley reflected. “Since we do not have a big Black population at Bishops, it is always important for us to continue sharing our history, culture, and lived experiences with the community. I think the changes we made this year engaged more people in this recognition, so I was very happy about that,” Ehiosa concluded.
