Though February is the shortest month of the year, this Black History Month is flooded with intersectional events sponsored by the new Office of Multicultural Affairs.
The Black History Month Celebration seeks to garner student involvement and grassroots education. Student organizations based in Cal State Long Beach such as the Africana Studies Student Association and Black Student Union have come together with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, which is what the Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs, Christian Lozano, hoped would happen.
“I don’t see how something like this can work without student input. We want to put on events that students want to see,” Lozano said.
Though normally scheduled to occur in Jan., the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service is one of the events being sponsored by the Office of Multicultural affairs. According to Lozano, the MLK Day of Service aims to bridge the gap between the campus community and the broader Long Beach community.
“We’re incorporating the same idea [that] MLK stood for. Community service and social justice. We wanted to incorporate that on this campus, and within our own office as well,” Lozano said.
The MLK Day of Service plans to rely on student involvement in order to work with various nonprofit organizations local to Long Beach. Organizations such as the Rescue Mission of Long Beach, Food Finders and Operation Jump Start intend to assign student volunteers to servicing tasks, such as food packaging or beatification projects.
Lozano hopes the event will inspire a sense of community responsibility in CSULB students, and that volunteering events like these will allow students to build connections with local nonprofits in the future.
Along with servicing events, these month-long festivities include specialized workshops tailored to discussing particular issues with identity and blackness. Whether it be through theater performances or personal accounts from CSULB students, Lozano said that the celebration aims to bring something new to the Beach.
“People tell me that things like this have not happened on campus for a long time, but we want to do that. We want to bring these types of programs and have things that represent people of color,” Lozano said.
The Office of Multicultural Affairs intends on hosting a full heritage month for each of the student resource center populations, though Lozano said that every heritage month will be based on student involvement.
The MLK Day of Service will take place on Friday, Feb. 19 and students are able to register for free on Beachsync.