Kent State University’s Black United Students helped turn Negro History Week into Black History Month in 1970, years before it became nationally recognized.
Mwatabu Okantah, professor and chair of the Department of Africana Studies and a Kent State graduate, was recently featured on WKYC discussing Black United Students (BUS) programming in February 1970.
Okantah, who served as vice president of Black United Students in the 1970s as a student at Kent State, told WKYC, "MLK is assassinated in April of ’68, and everything turns upside down." Students were frustrated and inspired to take action.
“They staged a series of demonstrations that culminated in a mass walkout. Over 200 Black students walked off campus,” Okantah told WKYC.
Okantah teaches students at Kent State about this walkout, a defining moment for Black United Students, wrote WKYC.
The Kent State community, including former president of Black United Students, Duane Cox, and current president and junior sociology major, Khori Davis, continues to remember where that moment has brought them.
“Black History Month, being formed here, knowing that there was history before it was even founded – and that it continues to be built upon by people who came here before me and the people who will come after me,” Davis told WKYC.