North High School students discuss their upcoming Black History Month projects.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Members of the student council at North High School in Minneapolis say they wanted to do something for Black History Month that celebrates Black history and culture while creating some positivity during a challenging year.
"We already are in a pandemic, we’re going through a revolution, there’s just so much happening right now and I thought with our student council team we can do something that will make people feel better," Junior North High School's Khadija Ba said.
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Students at North High School collecting stories for Black History Month
Members of the student council at North High School in Minneapolis say they wanted to do something for Black History Month that celebrates Black history and culture while creating some positivity during a challenging year.
They’re asking people, especially those living in their community, to send in a video or written message explaining why they love and appreciate Black history and what it means to them.
"I feel like this is a good way to get people together in the community, just to bring some light and some shine and just like make things happier," Freshman at North High School, Ayanna Melander said.
They hope by sharing voices, stories and experiences they can help other people better understand the experiences of Black communities.
"We don’t need someone to feel bad for us. We need someone to fight with us and fight for us because fighting for us and fighting with us makes us all better," Melander said.
Fighting for the better is something these teens have seen first-hand in Minneapolis this year. They say the attention brought to racial justice since the killing of George Floyd gave them even more inspiration to do something special for Black History Month this year.
As history continues to unfold in these high schoolers’ back yards, they hope when students learn about what happened in Minneapolis in 2020 the beauty outweighs the pain.
"I want people to see this as we finally stood up and we unified and we came together and we made change," Ba said. "I also want it to be shown as when people come together beautiful things happen."
"I hope they see a revolution of people of color and everybody just uniting together to fight for what we’ve managed to fight for for a very long time," Melander said.
If you would like to participate in the project, email your video or written statement to: amel2403@mspedu.org.