The UTM Black History Matters Coalition (BHMC) is demanding that the university add a required African-American History course to its General Education curriculum.
UTM’s mission statement reads, “[UTM] educates and engages responsible citizens to lead and serve in a diverse world.” However, the BHMC does not feel that UTM has prepared their students to lead and serve in a diverse world without educating them first on black history.
“In order to function intelligently in our society, then, our students must leave here with a deep understanding of African American history and culture,” stated Dr. David Barber, History Professor at UTM.
“Demonstrations under the banner of ‘Black Lives Matter’ are crying proof of our society’s need to understand the African American experience,” added Barber.
Over the last four months the BHMC has reached out to only encounter pushback on their resolution review by the university’s administration and, most recently, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee due to miscommunication and time restraints.
Along with introducing their proposal, the BHMC has conducted a number of forums and social media campaigns in order to spread awareness to their proposal. Alexis Millsaps, a Senior Communications major from Booneville, MS, who is on the steering committee of the BHMC at UTM said, “This course has been receptive by students, however it has not been receptive by the administration.”
According to Barber and Millsaps, there are benefits to implementing an African-American History course.
According to Barber, “The history of Black People in this country has been largely suppressed — very few students, even black students, receive any serious education in this history. Educating black students in this history, then, gives our students the dignity of having a very powerful history. Black culture, the response to white oppression, has shaped this country in innumerable ways, and has been the means by which black people have survived 250 years of slavery, 100 years of segregation, and a half-century more of being at the bottom of American society. For white students, the only way that we can successfully separate ourselves from being part of a systemic oppression of black people is to understand the real history — that this country became the richest and most powerful country in the world on the backs of Black people.
Millsaps believes that by implementing this course, UTM will make a stance on hate speech that is directed toward African-Americans.
Although there have been pushbacks to making this course required, the BHMC, along with the Black Student Association, students and faculty members, are still fighting for the importance of implementing this course.
