This month, the Office of Pluralism and Leadership will celebrate its 10th annual Black Legacy Month, a unique celebration to the College that recognizes the Black experience at Dartmouth. OPAL has partnered with several student-run organizations on campus to host 17 events throughout the month, including movie screenings, museum tours and educational programming.
Black Legacy Month committee member Travis Owusu ’26 said this year’s theme of “Lighting a Fire, Leaving a Legacy” emphasizes that Black history will be “passed down [for] generations to come.”
“One thing that we wanted to emphasize is that Black History Month is not just about history,” Owusu said. “It’s about what [we are] currently doing as well … not just about the past. Black history … is something that continuously builds.”
The celebration began with an opening ceremony in Collis Common Ground on Feb. 1 that featured speakers and discussions about the upcoming events planned for the month. OPAL also co-hosted an Afro-Asian Solidarity Dinner with the Dartmouth Asian American Studies Collective, Mosaic Dartmouth and the Dartmouth chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to educate attendees on the shared histories of struggle of the Black and Asian communities.
DAASC member Lin Lin ’26, who helped plan the dinner, said the event was “extremely successful” and brought members of the Asian and Black communities at Dartmouth together during a challenging time.
“We’re reckoning with grief, with loss, with death at different scales … so this was a time to create a space to imagine possibilities of solidarity and allyship on campus,” Lin said.
On Feb. 11, students gathered for an annual event centered around Black hair care and history, titled “Crowning Our Legacy.” According to planning committee co-chair Kayla Pena ’27, the event was designed to teach students “about taking care of their hair and learning how to do different hairstyles.”
“It just feels like one big family, and it’s just so comforting being able to also provide hair products that we don’t really have too much access to in town,” Pena said.
Upcoming programs include a Black history exhibit at Rauner Library on Feb. 17, a screening of “The Blackening” at Loew Auditorium on Feb. 26 and a closing “Collis Black Out” party with food and games on Feb. 28.
Committee member Dominique Quinonez ’28 said she is most excited for the “Echoes of Us” event on Feb. 22, during which students will be able to collect and research “artifacts” to create their own “time capsule to … submit into the library.”
Quinonez added that the celebration aims to “focus on the good parts of Black legacies and not necessarily … the trauma.”
“I like to see this more as a celebration of our legacies, less about reveling or groveling and the things that people would expect us to,” Quinonez said. Some “would expect us to hold on to that pain. Instead, we’re choosing … to host a celebration.”
Pena said she hopes this year’s theme will encourage the Black community at Dartmouth to work to “open doors” for future generations at the College.
“This won’t be our only anniversary,” Pena said. “We are going to keep going. It’s going to go to 20, 30 years. Black students are here to stay on campus and are welcomed and are beautiful.”
