“Hidden Heroes in STEAM” was the theme at Harborfields’ annual districtwide Black History Celebration, held on Feb. 1 in the high school auditorium and emceed by Oldfield Middle School students Kingston Carter, Amir Charles and David Ferdinand and Dean of Students Jeffrey Shade.
The many marvelous musical performances included “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Harborfields High School freshman Ashley Deronvil; Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” by senior Emma DiPrima; Steve Lacy’s “Dark Red” by the rock trio of Aaron Alonso-Tittmann, Amelia Freiberger and Kieran Maguire; Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” by the acoustic duo of seventh grader Abigail Kelly and her father, Board of Education President Christopher Kelly; Coleman Hawkins’ jazz classic “Body and Soul” by Peter Hoss and Laura Pomerantz; and “Celebrate Black History” and “What Can One Little Person Do?” by Washington Drive Primary School and Thomas J. Lahey Elementary School students, respectively.
Original poems were read by eighth grader Katelynne Figueroa (“A Legacy of Strength and Resilience”) and sixth grader Sebastian Rabel (“A Fire and Words”), while sixth graders Milanna Orza and Anjali Rampersaud presented Curtiss Hayes’ “I Had a Dream”; seventh graders Nadia McKelvey and Alani Spence read Nikki Giovanni’s “Black History Month” and Mychal Wynn’s “I Am the Black Child”; and freshmen Ashley Deronvil, Needjy Guerrier and Skylar McDougal narrated Roda Ahmed’s “Mae Among the Stars.”
A video from Washington Drive students spotlighted the achievements of acoustician Dr. James West, inventor of the foil electret microphone. Other Black STEAM luminaries acknowledged as hidden heroes included dentist and inventor Dr. George F. Grant, inventor Frederick Jones, and nurse and inventor Marie Van Brittan Brown.
The event’s keynote speaker was Emmy Award-winning Spectrum News NY1 journalist, “Live at Ten” anchor and author Cheryl Wills, the first African American woman to host a prime-time nightly newscast for the cable network. Wills led the audience on a fascinating historical and genealogical survey of her own hidden hero, her ancestor Sandy Wills of Haywood County, Tennessee.
“As I give my speech, I want students to think of science, technology, engineering and math, because my journey touches on every one of them,” Wills said. “I didn’t know I was a descendant of a black Civil War veteran until about 12 years ago. When I was growing up here on Long Island, I had no idea. My dad didn't know about him. My grandfather’s father had no idea, neither did his father. I am the first to use technology such as Ancestry.com and other records to find my grandfather’s hidden story. My great-great-great-grandfather, Sandy Wills, was born in 1840. He was purchased at auction by a slave owner named Edmund Wills, and he suffered on that plantation, working against his will. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, my grandpa Sandy made a run for it and waited for the opportunity for black men to fight, which came the moment. President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He didn’t go alone; he went with his friends. They all escaped together, and using technology, I found all of their enlistment records. He got his honorable discharge. When they handed this to my grandpa Sandy, he could not read a single word of it, even though he knew what it meant. Why? This is Black History Month, and this is an important part of Black history that everyone in this auditorium should know: It was illegal to educate enslaved people. But my grandfather still understood the power of this document, which meant freedom.”
Date Added: 2/6/2024