BYU celebrated Black Historical past Month by means of music, artwork and religion

Susan Grey Reed Leggroan was born a slave in Mississippi however died a Latter-day Saint in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Her story consists of widowhood and remarriage, emancipation and pioneering in harsh frontier circumstances, the delivery of 13 youngsters and the younger demise of 5 of them, her conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the love and respect of her posterity and group.

Susan Grey Reed Leggroan is only one of many Black Latter-day Saints featured in a gallery outdoors Brigham Younger College’s Workplace of Belonging, and the gallery is only one of many actions, occasions and tributes BYU has sponsored this February in honor of Black Historical past Month.

Ned and Susan Leggroan, early Black Latter-day Saints, had been baptized in Utah in 1873.

J. Willard Marriott Library, “Century of Black Mormons” exhibit

‘Linked to Every Different’

In america, February is designated as Black Historical past Month, which honors the triumphs and struggles of African People all through U.S. historical past.

The Workplace of Belonging centered its commemoration efforts for the month on the theme “A Legacy of Religion: Linked to Every Different By way of the Household of God.” 

The theme was impressed by the “Century of Black Mormons” exhibit of the J. Willard Marriott Library, which incorporates biographical sketches of people of Black African descent baptized into the Church between 1830 and 1930.

The Workplace of Belonging makes use of gospel-centered strategies in its efforts to create a group of belonging, mentioned Carl Hernandez, BYU vp of belonging. As such, it was a pure step to deal with the triumphs, religion and struggles of Black Latter-day Saints. “Sharing the tales about Black Latter-day Saints who gathered, who served and sacrificed, and who stayed true to the gospel of Jesus Christ evokes our college students and helps to extend their religion in Jesus Christ,” he mentioned.

Extra broadly, the entire occasions and actions sponsored by the Workplace of Belonging by means of the month had been meant to assist college students know and perceive “that we’re all youngsters of God and that our religion in Jesus Christ is elevated as we share private and household historical past tales,” Hernandez mentioned.

Connecting the human household

College students look by means of a gallery of Black Latter-day Saints hanging outdoors the Workplace of Belonging within the Wilkinson Heart on BYU campus in Provo, Utah. The gallery is certainly one of some ways BYU has commemorated Black Historical past Month in February 2023.

On Feb. 15, the Workplace of Belonging hosted its gallery-style displaying of 20 Black Latter-day Saints from the “Century of Black Mormons” database. It showcased images and included a small placard subsequent to every picture with a snapshot of the person’s life and religion. 

The gallery introduced extra well-known figures like Inexperienced Flake and Jane Manning James in addition to lesser-known people like Leggroan and like Elijah In a position, who joined the Church in 1832 and served three proselyting missions.

Vice President of Belonging Carl Hernandez III and Affiliate Vice President of Belonging Lita Little Giddins seems to be by means of a gallery of 20 Black Latter-day Saints hanging outdoors the Workplace of Belonging within the Wilkinson Heart in honor of Black Historical past Month.

As well as, the BYU Report Linking Lab discovered every of these people on the FamilyTree and arrange a Relative Finder group for them. This allowed folks visiting the gallery to scan a QR code and uncover in the event that they had been associated to any of the early Black members being honored.

“It was a good way to make the connection to the gallery extra private, and tie it to household historical past, which is a vital element of our aims and targets within the Workplace of Belonging,” defined Shana Clemence, who works within the workplace of the vp for belonging.

A number of the data used within the gallery additionally got here from the Report Linking Lab. The lab has developed a software that hyperlinks households and people throughout data and combines the efforts of FamilySearch, BYU college students and educational researchers, Clemence defined. The automated software has added over 6 million African People to the FamilyTree, utilizing knowledge from the 1900 and 1910 U.S. censuses.

Joe Worth, middle, director of BYU’s Report Linking Lab, and college students pose for a photograph on the BYU Report Linking Lab. They work to develop FamilySearch’s genealogical tree by means of file attachment, the event of auto-indexing expertise and different initiatives.

Roughly 7,000 volunteers helped connect extra census data and develop the protection for African American households with youngsters, mentioned Joseph Worth, the director of the Report Linking Lab. Because of their efforts, the protection price for these households within the 1910 census went from 5% to 99.8%. “This has been probably the most significant initiatives that I’ve labored on,” Worth commented. 

The general response to the gallery has been “certainly one of respect and a need to find out about these superb Saints,” Clemence mentioned.

The gallery will quickly be moved to the Joseph Smith Constructing for a everlasting residence, with the opportunity of enlargement.

‘A Legacy of Religion’

On Feb. 8, the Workplace of Belonging hosted a lecture with Lita Little Giddins, the brand new affiliate vp of belonging, and Affiliate Athletic Director Whitney Johnson, talking about “A Legacy of Religion: Linked to Every Different By way of the Household of God.”

Johnson associated her feeling of connection to Black Latter-day Saint Esther Jane “Nettie” Scott Kirchhoff, who was baptized in September 1898 along with her husband, German immigrant Richard Kirchhoff. 

BYU Affiliate Athletic Director Whitney Johnson speaks throughout a lecture sponsored by the Workplace of Belonging on the theme, “A Legacy of Religion: Linked to Every Different By way of the Household of God,” on Feb. 8, 2023.

In some censuses Nettie is described as “white,” whereas the 1905 census lists her as “black,” and the 1910 census lists her and her three sons as “mulatto.”

“Once I take into consideration Nettie and once I first learn her story, I questioned what she endured all through her life,” Johnson mentioned. “Was she so much like me — one white mother or father, one black, at all times caught within the center between two cultures, two stereotypes?”

Nettie remained a stabilizing pressure and a pillar of religion all through her life regardless of all of her challenges, Johnson shared. How? “Nettie knew that God beloved her. She beloved God, and he or she beloved her neighbor, and that was sufficient for her.”

Those that are keen to let hope and love be their guiding pressure will uncover that they too could be stabilizing forces, pillars of sunshine, Johnson mentioned.

Lita Little Giddins, BYU affiliate vp of belonging, speaks throughout a lecture sponsored by the Workplace of Belonging in honor of Black Historical past Month on the theme “A Legacy of Religion: Linked to Every Different By way of the Household of God,” on Feb. 8, 2023.

Jane Manning James was a Black Latter-day Saint pioneer “whose story and spirit I’ve embraced from the second I realized about her,” mentioned Little Giddins, whose publish as affiliate vp of belonging started on the day of her remarks. 

James, fondly often known as “Aunt Jane,” walked 800 miles to Nauvoo, Illinois, and lived with Joseph Smith and his household for a time. She traveled along with her household to Utah and was among the many first of the pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.

James was stalwart in her love for the Prophet Joseph Smith and Emma, the temple and the Lord. “She left us a legacy of religion that was unrelenting,” Little Giddins mentioned.

Intertwining a few of her personal life experiences with these of “Sister Jane,” Little Giddins expressed her honest need that “the various legacies of religion of our Savior, amongst our Black pioneer brothers and sisters and amongst one another, will get us nearer to a Zion group of belonging, a group the place we worth and embrace one another, a group the place we not solely know what the phrases are within the Assertion of Belonging, however we embody them and turn into human vessels of the rules of belonging, shaping and reshaping the best way we predict and the best way we work together and deal with each other.”

Social media outreach

All through February, the Workplace of Belonging Instagram account additionally featured a number of Black BYU alumni and college students answering the questions: “How did your BYU expertise put together you to exit into the world to serve? What did you deliver from your individual life expertise to strengthen the religion of others at BYU?”

For instance, Derwin “Dewey” Grey shares in an Instagram story how he performed soccer for BYU from 1989 to 1992 and is now a pastor at Transformation Church. He defined how going to a Latter-day Saint faculty like BYU as an African American with out a religion base was distinctive. “That have for me taught me easy methods to get together with different folks, easy methods to be interested by what different folks consider, and why they consider that. The BYU expertise taught me about exhausting work. It taught me about service.”

BYU’s Workplace of Belonging Instagram account options Derwin Grey speaking about his time at BYU from 1989 to 1992.

Now as a New Testomony theologian, scholar and pastor, Grey mentioned he is ready to give again to BYU by providing one other perspective. “I’m capable of construct bridges so we will have mutual dialog, mutual change.”

Different contributors included Zion Smiley, a second-year grasp’s scholar within the Marriott Faculty of Enterprise; Marsha Baird, BYU alumnus who’s a observe and subject Olympian; Dr. Robert Foster, who served as president of the BYU Pupil Affiliation; and Jamal Willis, a BYU alumnus, former NFL working again and now assistant director of multicultural scholar providers at BYU.

Present BYU college students Jozi Budenbender and Issa McKnight additionally shared on BYU’s Instagram account how they’ve discovered a way of belonging at BYU. For Budenbender, participation in on-campus actions has helped her discover a sense of belonging. McKnight, alternatively, shared she feels a way of belonging by means of her main and by discovering mentors.

Mini concert events on the library

Myrna Layton, the performing arts librarian on the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU, believes deeply within the energy of music. 

Music has been an expressive car for Black folks, and their rhythms and melodies type the spine of American music, she defined. “Jazz, blues, ragtime, rock and roll — these musical types wouldn’t exist with out the contributions of Black composers.”

With that in thoughts, Layton and her colleague and fellow librarian Brian Champion collaborated to create a live performance collection for Black Historical past Month that includes the music of Black composers. 

They’ve sponsored three to 4 concert events every February from 2016 by means of 2020. “We missed 2021 and 2022 as a result of pandemic concerns, and resumed this 12 months with out Brian Champion as a result of his retirement,” Layton mentioned.

An ensemble performs blues music as a part of a mini live performance on Feb. 7, 2018, on the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU in honor of Black Historical past Month. The ensemble consists of Jeff Turley on piano, Erik Larson on bass, Rex Wilkins on drums and Samuel López and Brian Worth on guitars.

The concert events sometimes happen Wednesdays at midday within the auditorium of the library. When librarian organizers can, they get African American college students or staff to carry out. By way of the years they’ve featured the music of Black artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner or the Queens of Soul. Different concert events have been devoted to the Blues, ragtime, gospel, classical or Latin or Brazilian jazz.

“[Music] is deeply linked to all that we really feel, to all that we’re. It’s how we retailer our reminiscences, how we make connections, how we expertise and categorical our relationship with God. I feel that is true of individuals throughout completely different international locations and races and life experiences,” Layton mentioned.

“How may music, then, not be necessary to Black Historical past Month?”

Multicultural Views

The cultures of the Black/African diaspora are numerous. An occasion sponsored by BYU’s Multicultural Pupil Companies titled “Views” permits college students to rejoice and showcase the richness of their different cultures by means of music, dance, poetry and different varieties with your entire BYU group.

This 12 months’s occasion held on Feb. 17 featured a scholar gospel choir, authentic poems, a style present, the BYU Hip Hop Membership, a saxophone cowl of “A Change is Gonna Come,” and different instrumental and vocal performances.

For each the scholar performers and viewers, “Views” fosters “cultural publicity and understanding, management abilities, connecting with different college students from completely different backgrounds, and an elevated sense of belonging at BYU,” mentioned Moises Aguirre, director of multicultural scholar providers.