More than 200 students at Mark Bills Middle School in Peoria gathered Thursday in the gymnasium for this year's “Ebony Era” assembly in celebration of Black History Month.
The program, hosted by the Future Teachers Club, featured student-crafted displays honoring important Black figures as part of a “living museum,” as well as musical selections inspired by the school’s 7 Mindsets curriculum and dance and spoken word performances.
“This is teaching the kids culture, at the end of the day. This is teaching them about their heritage. It’s teaching them about the people that came before us in inspiring our future, to better our future,” said Mykia Jarrett, a teacher’s assistant and coach at the school who leads the Future Teachers Club and helped organize the event. “We are our ancestors wildest dreams.”
Jarrett said 21 Black staff members work at Mark Bills Middle School, and the student body across grades 5-8 is predominantly Black, but very diverse. She said the Ebony Era program conveys unity with a message that “we are different, we are one.”
“I want the students to take away that we as a school can come together as one, and we can show the community that we are a team. We are all here together in this one school,” said Jarrett. “Jesse Jackson just passed recently; he was a big activist, and everything during the movement of his time was separated. Look at us now, we’re coming together as one.”
Other noteworthy historic Black figures depicted on the students’ artwork included Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ruby Bridges, Langston Hughes, Oprah Winfrey, Sidney Poitier, Michelle Obama, Malcolm X, Serena Williams and many more.
Jarrett said the Ebony Era program has grown in the three years since its inception.
“It shows that we as community are very driven and very motivated and very inspired by one another,” she said. “Three years ago, when I asked the fifth grade team about if we could do an event like this — I thought to myself, ‘What if the fifth grade does a live museum?’ And when I talked to the team, they thought about it and they said, ‘Why not try it?’
“Then more classes started coming and saying, ‘I want to be part of it this year. I want to do this. I want to do that.’ It just kept bringing our community together, and it’s a wonderful thing, because look at this: we’re all in one, we’re mixing together, communicating, and talking to one another.”
The Ebony Era celebration at Mark Bills is one of numerous Black History Month programs held across Peoria Public Schools throughout February, as the district encouraged families and community members to join in the recognition of Black culture while highlighting students’ leadership and creativity.
