LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — I spent some time with four leaders at Henry Clay High School in Lexington earlier this month. Three seniors and a junior, from four very different backgrounds, all involved in more clubs and activities than we could name here and all playing important roles in their school’s community.
I asked them what Black History Month has taught them?
“It kinda helps me to learn that Black history is American history and that we’re all a part of this together,” says senior Melahnia Brown.
Junior Nia Henderson-Louis agrees. “It helped me realize how much Black people have done for America and as I move forward, I see people who look like me doing the same things that I want to do.”
“I feel if you’re going to talk to somebody, a lot of people just want to be heard,” says senior Grant Goodwin.
Mamebousso N’Dour moved to the United States from Senegal at age six and notes that people of other cultures often don’t know about the contributions African Americans have made to our society.
“I guess knowing more of the Black history here. Like some of the people that we talk about, like MLK and Malcolm X and all of that, I learned from school and then brought back home to the people," says N’Dour.
All four plan to attend college to chase their dreams, and all agree that the lessons learned during Black History Month have shaped the way they lead in the community.
“Like I’m not going to agree with everything somebody says, and they’re not going to agree with everything I say, but I think it’s nice to lock in with different cultures and see how different people see things or imagine them,” says Henderson-Louis.
“That’s 100% fair. I believe that is really true, and I think understanding just lets you relate. I wouldn’t say that I can relate to everyone here, but at least I can know where they are coming from, and I can see their viewpoint," adds Goodwin.
“I’d say it helped me not being one-sided to it and knowing all of it and learning more about it,” adds N’Dour. “And becoming a leader as a Black person in history, having that knowledge of the people who came before me and persevered.”
“When we’re learning about Black history, it’s learning about how has this event affected like the overall story of like America or the world, and I think that without learning about Black history, we wouldn’t really have that and we would be very one-track minded and very tunnel-visioned in how we think about how our country became,” says Brown.
