Room 201 at the Community Center was buzzing with excitement as student winners with their families entered the room to participate in the Fourth Annual Social Justice Student Awards Ceremony sponsored by the Prince George’s County Lynching Memorial Project (PGCLMP) and hosted by the Greenbelt Black History and Culture Committee. The excitement increased as more and more students, parents and community folks arrived and more chairs were set up.
Mayor Emmett Jordan was on hand for the fourth straight year. Joining him for the first time were State Senator Alonzo Washington, State Delegate Ashanti Martinez and County Council Member Jolene Ivey. All three representatives presented the contest winners with congratulatory citations for their achievements.
The ceremony was opened by Terry Hamlin and Sherri Mehta from PGCLMP, who served as program hosts, followed by greetings from Lois Rosado, chair of the Greenbelt Black History and Culture Committee. Rosado introduced Jordan, who thanked the PGCLMP and congratulated the students and their families. Lula Beatty provided attendees with background and history of the project’s Social Justice Student Awards Contest and acknowledged the four racial terror lynching victims from Prince George’s County: Thomas Juricks, 1869; John Henry Scott, 1875; Michael Green, 1878; and Stephen Williams, 1894. The Social Justice contest is a concrete way to honor their memories.
Essay Contest Winners
Caroline Gyan of Frederick Douglass High School won third place with her essay, Veil of Injustice: The Erasure. She read from her essay about the terrible experiments that were practiced by Dr. J. Marion Sims on enslaved Black women without any form of anesthesia and who perpetuated the idea that women of African descent do not feel pain the way European-descended women do. Sims’ work was later considered a form of racial torture. Gyan also described the Tuskegee experiment on Black American men who were infected with syphilis and watched to determine how the disease progressed in humans. They were never given penicillin, an effective cure at the time. This experiment led to a major distrust of the medical establishment in the African American community that persists to this day. She also wrote about current maternal health disparities leading to high death rates among Black American women.
Devin Bond, who tied for third place, and second place winner Zyon Lawson were not able to attend.
Girelys Tavarez Ramirez, of Chesapeake Math and IT (CMIT) Academy North High School won first place with From Chains to Denial: The Hidden Cost of Colonialism in the Dominican Republic. She read her essay about how colonialism produced racial, social and economic barriers for African-descended peoples in the Dominican Republic, as well as in the United States, all stemming from systems of colonialism and slavery. She described how the descendants of black-skinned Dominicans and Haitians are disenfranchised and even deported to Haiti. European-descended people and those more fair-skinned are treated with deference in both countries and it all stems from the vestiges of colonial racist practices and policies.
Creative Writing/Spoken Word Winners
Ava Raines of Eleanor Roosevelt High School won third place with Parties Unknown and recited her powerful poem about how racial terror lynchings are described by the fact that parties/perpetrators who lynch the victims were always “unknown.”
Kaliyah Fletcher of Frederick Douglass High School won second place with The Strength in Our Strike and recited her poem about honoring African ancestors, maintaining dignity in the face of injustice and always striding with pride and aspiring toward excellence. It was very moving.
Cheyenne M. Godfrey of Eleanor Roosevelt High School won first place with Fields of Greed. Godfrey recited a passionate poem that produced great emotion in the audience about hope in the midst of constant despair and anti-Blackness practices that tear at the soul, yet will not break it.
Visual Arts Winners
Riley-Alicia Burton of Charles Herbert Flowers High School took third place with Never Forgotten.
Angelina Akumkperik of Charles Herbert Flowers High School took second place with Latasha Harlins.
Angel Adesoji of CMIT Academy North High School took first place with Intercepting Fingers.
Unfortunately, the paintings were not present. However, each painter described their work and while their descriptions made it possible to imagine the works, being able to see the paintings would have helped. The paintings will be shown on the PGCLMP website, pgclmp.org.
Inspiration
Tavarez Ramirez stated that she was inspired to learn more about the history of the Dominican Republic after visiting with her family and noticing how people with darker skin tones were treated disrespectfully in the country. She wanted to learn more and did the research, producing an award-winning essay.
Fletcher said what influenced her poem was the racial injustice that she witnesses and the fact that Black Americans seem to be arrested more than any other group of Americans, and many are innocent of any crime.
Gyan was inspired by the book Medical Apartheid and the stories of her mother and family who work in the medical field.
This was a well-attended program, with over 60 people present. The audience left inspired by the excellent work of these students and their parents.
