Norwalk Community College Students Celebrate Black History

Press release from Norwalk Community College:

April 8, 2021

This week, Norwalk Community College (NCC) office of Student Activities invited students and staff to learn about African American history through music, narration, video and images. NCC invited The Blues and Beyond (TB&B), an interdisciplinary and culturally responsive educational program, to host a webinar that allowed students to interact with program performers and narrators. This presentation also featured guest artist Frenchie Davis (Rent, The Voice, American Idol), who wowed the audience with her incredible singing voice and discussed the relevance of Hip Hop in modern day popular music.

As described on the program’s website, TB&B provides rich opportunities for connecting to history and the evolution of African American music in the United States. TB&B offers special event programming like today’s immersive learning workshops for college students as well as standards aligned curriculum for grades 3 – 12. From field hollers and camp meetings to old spirituals to the Blues to the popular genres of today, music is the means by which African Americans have told their story.

"We believe that this unique program will influence students’ ability to reflect, their willingness to experiment and their ability to critique and learn from historic events and themselves. The universal appeal of the music helps connect the subject to their current lives,” explained Pracilya Titus, NCC Student Retention Specialist.

Significant research illustrates the lack of teaching of African American history within American schools. Today’s NCC event supports the intent of CT Public Act 19-12 – that directs all regional and local boards of education to include an elective course of studies at the high school level that provides students with a better understanding of the African-American, Black, Puerto Rican, and Latino contributions to United States history, society, economy, and culture. According to Jovan Noblin, NCC Director of Student Activities, “Our goal is to provide NCC students with programming that is engaging and entertains beyond the classroom. With its focus on the intersection of music and history, The Blues and Beyond simultaneously engaged our students in both humanities and the arts, while having fun.”

“It is impossible to separate the African American journey from the music, or the music from the journey,” says TB&B founder Eric Finland. “At a time when there is so much racial tension in our country, we believe that this fresh approach to music and history will help students appreciate how far we have come as a country, but also how far we still have to go.”

This press release was produced by Norwalk Community College. The views expressed here are the author's own.