Bowling Green schools mark Black History Month

Published 10:56 am Friday, February 28, 2025

By David Horowitz

 BY DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

 

 

West African percussionist Ibrahima “Ibro” Dioubate stands beside several African drums on the stage of Bowling Green Junior High School’s auditorium. South African dancer Michael Moloi holds the mic nearby. The audience of sixth-graders watches in anticipation.

“Are you guys ready?!” Moloi exclaims — to shouts and calls of joyous affirmation from the students.

With a yell, Moloi claps and stomps to create a rhythm that echoes auditorium-wide. Dioubate drums a complementary beat in return. Back and forth they go — a dialogue of beats between the two, aptly named “connection” — and cheers and applause ensue.

In the gymnasium, 15 panelists are describing their career journeys to another student audience. And in the cafeteria, counselors rotate through lessons using the theme of Black History Month to teach about modern-day pioneers and the soft skills needed for career success through the game-based learning platform Kahoot!.

Students cycled through the three activities Wednesday morning. Wrapping up the activities was the program “The Power of Education: A Path to Success,” hosted by Martha Sales, Western Kentucky University’s vice president for student experience and the dean of students; the final program also featured singing, dancing and spoken-word performances by various WKU student organizations. Elsewhere in the school district that morning, Bowling Green High School held activities celebrating cultures and countries represented schoolwide.

For BGJHS, it was the first time in Robert Lightning’s six years as principal that the annual Black History Month celebration featured an entire career panel. The willingness of community members to present for students was tremendous, he said. From doctors, to news professionals, to bankers, the panel featured “everything you could possibly think of to represent the community,” said City Commissioner Dana Beasley-Brown, coordinator of BGJHS’s Youth Services Center.

“I think it’s providing our students the opportunity to see many different members of our communities that share similar paths to them — and expose them to the diversity that exists within our communities,” Lightning said.

The intention of the panel, Lightning added, was to allow students to see various community members in different roles — “those that, again, look like them, may share the same path in life as them … I think it’s just about empowering our students: There’s so many different jobs, communities, individuals that I think could be great support systems for our students that exist in our community.”

BGJHS is one of the most diverse middle schools statewide — one where attending is akin to traveling the world, said Beasley-Brown, a mother of two children who attended the school. More than 56% of students in the school year 2023-24 were from racial minority groups, according to the Kentucky Department of Education Report Card data.

“Our students love to celebrate their different cultures,” Beasley-Brown said. “They’ve talked a lot about how they have experienced that maybe there are these gaps between their different cultures, and they feel like they’re disconnected from each other — and after they have days like this, they feel like, ‘Oh! I learned so much about this other culture, and I feel now that I understand them a whole lot more.’ And they have found that it helps bridge that gap, and they’re able to get to know each other across differences.”

WKU Math Professor Robin Ayers, one of the panelists, said she hopes students remember her lesson about the need to be prepared for whatever the future holds for them.

“They can overcome any obstacles, regardless of their age, regardless of their sex, regardless of their race,” she recalled her telling them. “I did it, and I know they can too.”

Added panelist Tiara Britt, a human resources manager for the city, “The overall message, we hope, is that they’re brave — and they step out there on faith, and to not give up because you never know where life’s going to lead you or what opportunities might be out there.”

Another panelist, Crye-Leike Realtor GeMonee Brown, said he hopes they remember his lesson that nothing substitutes for hard work.

“No matter what you do, you can be great at it, but it’s going to take hard work,” Brown said.

He also praised the event.

“I wish when I was growing up in Mississippi that we had more professionals come in and tell us, ‘Hey, you can do this,’ ” he said.

Back at the auditorium, the two performers and their colleague Windship Boyd, from the group AfricaNashville, had also just finished the first round of activities.

Auditorium volume levels had peaked: Teachers Gambia Flemister and Jasmine Varner were invited to dance in the group’s performance, and the students roared.

Dioubate had one word for the audience’s reception: “Beautiful.”

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