Cloquet students take charge in Black History Month celebration

Feb. 28—CLOQUET — The '90s anthem of social change, "Changes," by rapper 2Pac, blared through the Cloquet Senior High School PA system as students scurried through the school's auditorium to find their seats.

"I don't have much of a story but just this is a celebration of Black History Month. Who better to talk about Black History Month than a Black man?" guest speaker Jay Jackson asked the audience at the high school on Wednesday, Feb. 28.

Wednesday's event was the culmination of a month's worth of work by the newly founded student organization BIPOC — an acronym meaning Black, Indigenous and people of color — to take Black History Month from mandatory assigned school reading to an experiential celebration of Black history.

BIPOC secretary Kayla Covington opened the ceremony with a reading of a poem by BIPOC president Kamaria Johnson.

"When I look at the TV, I want to see someone who looks like me doing something other than rapping about drugs and disrespect. Doing something other than putting a ball in a net. I want to see a Black woman wearing her hair proud as a president. I want to see a Black man in blue being honored for what he did for Black youth," Covington read.

Nationwide, this year's Black History Month theme is "African Americans and the Arts." To represent the theme at the school, the BIPOC group had every student mold an individual piece of clay together to make a massive bowl that spanned the entirety of the color spectrum, with each piece of clay representing the diverse backgrounds and experiences of every individual Cloquet student.

"It's like an art project that incorporates every single person in the school. It's basically just about community and representing community through art," Johnson said.

However, the symbolism represented something deeper for Lindsey Markwardt, the group's advisor who works in restorative practice at the school, who spent the entire week worrying the bowl would be so massive that it would collapse into itself before it could be presented to the audience.

"It just represents, sometimes things can crack, then things can fall apart and that we can build each other back better, you know, even stronger than before," Markwardt said.

Fortunately for Markwardt, large amounts of epoxy held the bowl together.

To further contextualize the Black experience, BIPOC invited Jackson, a Chicago native living on the Iron Range, to be the guest speaker at Wednesday's event to discuss some of his lived experiences of being Black, as well as his philosophy toward the future of civil rights.

"Like I say, I came up on the streets of Chicago. I've seen changes. Throughout our history. We've had Black heroes that have helped contribute to the change that we are experiencing today. See, I would not be standing here today. If it wasn't for the Black young people here," Jackson told the audience.

After the speech, the BIPOC group invited students to drink African tea with African honey to engage and better familiarize them with some of the cultural exports of Africa.

The decision to serve tea, along with playing 2Pac and the classic "Where is the Love" by the Black Eyed Peas, was an intentional decision by BIPOC to engage students' senses, thus giving them a direct association with Black History Month.

"It engages the audience a bit more and has them actually remember and register their brain to remember Black History Month," said Amia Jensen, vice president of BIPOC.

Both funding the event and BIPOC was made possible through grants from the Cloquet Educational Foundation.

The BIPOC group was founded by students in 2022 to advance diversity awareness among the student body and to provide a safe space for students of color by taking direct action to make the school a better place for all students.

"It's really just grown into something where we're creating a safe place for Black people. We also just like spreading Black culture throughout our school and representing who we are as people," Johnson said.

However, despite their objectives, the group also serves as a social organization that provides a shared space and common ground for students of color at Cloquet High School.

"It was just kind of fun to talk to other people and make the school better, make the school a better place for people of color," said DeMani Wilson, treasurer for BIPOC.

For BIPOC, Black History Month represents a once-a-year opportunity to share Black history, culture and art with the entire school.

"Black History Month is important because it's just not as much recognized, I guess," Wilson said. "Like, Black people have done so many things, and it's just not recognized that much. I feel like we're kind of using it to put out there and show people what we have done."

After Jackson's speech, the BIPOC group was brimming with energy knowing that they left their mark on the school and hopefully left the audience with a better understanding of what it means to be Black.

"I hope they walk away with being a little more educated and a little more interested in culture and celebrate a little more," Jensen said.