The Helping Hands Black History Program took place on Feb. 22, 2022 inside Magale Recital Hall. The program’s coordinators kept their promise to make it a red-carpet event.

The program was a presentation of Black historical figures with performances by students on campus singing songs, doing spoken word and acting out scenes.

Few were allowed hints as to what would happen at the show. The entire production and event were planned in near-complete secrecy.

This added to the surprise when it came time to hear who was competing for the awards and who would win during the award show itself.

The night started with a prayer and introductions made by the student leadership of Helping Hands.

The opening act was the Lifted Voices Gospel Choir who sang beautifully and began the night on a high note. This was followed by awarding and remembering past Black leaders and educators.

The winner for notable Black educators was Booker T. Washington who was the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute. There were, of course, notable mentions to other great educators and thinkers like W.E.B Du Bois and William Trotter.

In between the various spoken word and singing parts of the event, there were other award show ceremonies including Black activists, Black female leaders, the founder of the Black Panthers Huey P. Newton, the first black president of the United States Barack Obama, civil rights activist Rosa Parks and the first Black award winner for the academy awards, Hattie McDaniels.

Throughout the night, there were multiple standing ovations given to the singers and performers. In particular, the spoken word performance halfway through the event got applause and a standing ovation that went on for a few minutes.
To call such a performance amazing alone is an understatement.

Many organizations on campus were also present to show support, in particular, National Pan Hellenic Council and various sororities and fraternities.

The ending performance that night was a collection of all those who were involved getting on stage to dance to Soul Train.

Followed by a speech by Jamie Flangan the facility advisor of Helping Hands and President Jeremiah Hollins thanking those who came and saying a farewell to those who were graduating from the school as this will be their last Northwestern State University of Louisiana’s Black History event as students.

“Black History isn’t just our history but America’s History,” Flangan said.

The Black History presentation and award show was both educational and an amazing performance done by the students.