To recognize Black History Month at William Street, the RA team decided to get together and plan one meaningful event that would pulse through their community and get conversations started. As the they discussed it and began planning the event they decided to make a statement about how black history should not be confined to just one month. So this particular event was purposely held in the month of March.
The program centered around the viewing of a PBS documentary, "A Class Divided". This story was about a school teacher in Iowa who separated her all white elementary school class into brown eyed and blue eyed students, beginning the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Treating each group of students either positively or negatively based on eye color, the experiment had a profound affect on the way her students viewed prejudice in America.
The William Street community viewed the documentary together and three of the RAs took the lead in facilitating a discussion on racism and prejudice throughout our country. The discussion was quite productive and examined feelings, thoughts and identities in America. The conversation was supported by thought-provoking images that decorated the space as well a community of open-minded residents with a great dedication to the true history of America. This event was such a success that plans to develop additional black history programs were immediately discussed and have since been implemented to keep black history alive.
