People to Know...

Name five famous African-Americans.

This statement stumps many people, not just around America, but right here on our Whitman campus. In an effort to abolish a stigma that has been created about Black people, namely that they are only basketball players, rappers, singers, football players--athletes and entertainers, essentially--and not people that have contributed to the world in many other ways, BSU is taking the initiative and addressing this issue with its People to Know in February. A big part of celebrating Black History Month is by raising awareness of Black peoples' accomplishments. Whitman's BSU is doing its part by celebrating a list of African-Americans we feel are inspiring and in some cases, not very well known.

Every week, we release at least two of these inspirational people with a brief description of their work and why they are (0r should be more) famous. These will be distributed around campus. Hopefully by the end of this month, the answer to this simple question will not only yield "uh...Barack Obama? Beyonce?" and Lil' Wayne, but some of the other less-known ones such as Michael Eric Douglas, Mae Jemison, and Michael M. Burns.

Look out for these on campus. Stay tuned.