Milton Somers Middle School students celebrate black history

Celebration included traditional drumming, dancers, Buffalo Soldier re-enactors for Black History Month

Like countless families throughout the country, the students at Milton M. Somers Middle School in La Plata wanted to do something memorable to celebrate the lives, accomplishments and traditions of African-Americans everywhere during this year’s Black History Month.

So they decided to organize a morning of assemblies full of singing, dancing, drumming and even — yes — some history lessons.

The students and teachers of the school’s Inclusion and Multiculturalism committee (IAM, pronounced “I am”) worked together to come up with program ideas. The teachers encouraged the students to take the lead on planning and organizing the whole event.

“Everything was really a team effort,” said Sonia Matthew, an administrative assistant at Somers who serves as the IAM committee’s facilitator. “It was entirely team planned and student generated.”

“We have a lot of African-American students in our school, and we wanted to capitalize on the fact that in February we commemorate and celebrate black history,” Matthew said.

The event, which took place over the course of three assemblies throughout the morning of Friday, Feb. 16, brought the school’s sixth, seventh and eighth graders to the gym where they were welcomed with the cadences of traditional African drumming by local jazz musician and drummer James Jumbe Gilliam. Gilliam got the students clapping and stamping their feet along with his rich, complex beats.

Somers student Tiffany Swearinger opened the ceremonies with a heartfelt rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” followed by a snappy performance by the drill demonstration team from the Air Force JROTC program at Henry J. Lackey High School, which wowed the students with precision maneuvers that included handing off their demonstration rifles through midair to the sound of gasps and applause from the crowd.

As a special treat, two re-enactors dressed as Buffalo Soldiers — African-American Army soldiers who served in the American West following the end of the Civil War — discussed the contributions of the 9th and 10th (Horse) Cavalry to American military and cultural history, and to the delight of students also showed off the heavy woolen winter uniforms that the soldiers wore.

The MS Royals, the school’s student dance team, closed out the ceremonies with a lively dance that ended with a march around the gym, energizing the students with enthusiasm as well as a greater awareness of the contributions of their African American friends and families.