African Burial Grounds

Upon hearing about our trip to the African Burial Grounds, I can admit that the main thought in my mind was the fact that I was going to be close to home (New Jersey) and could finally be in an atmosphere that I was more than comfortable with. If I would have researched more about the trip, and actually invested considerable interest in the field trip I would have not been surprised upon hearing the background of the African Burial Ground. 

I originally thought that the burial ground was an area where black slaves were buried and upon construction they discovered the grave site (which is a similar situation to the area near the court house located in Hackensack, New Jersey). However, we were educated and told that the African Burial Grave site was an area where blacks buried their own people accompanied by various emotional rituals. The fact that this was a site where blacks buried other blacks further highlights the fact that our history in this country goes way beyond and before mere slavery and that we did do things for ourselves, the way we wanted them to be done. 

The site had an aura of excellence and enriched culture attached to it, and despite the cold that I also felt, I felt very connected to the spirits of the deceased Africans and African-Americans. When you are surrounded around such a rich history and culture, I felt like I had no choice but to do better, and no excuse to not attain success.

Daisa Gainey

Sociology '14

daisa.gainey@gmail.com

New York: Concrete Jungle Where Dreamers are Buried...

New York City. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. There I stood in front of what seemingly looked like 4-5 mounds of grass on the side of a building. It was a cold day and the wind what doing its job well. I regretted wearing a T-shirt. Although frozen, the numbing air on my face whispered the essence of this moment. Dr. Carr poured a stream of water out of the bottle. I shed a tear.

                Going to the African Burial ground was a beautiful experience. Waking up at five am and taking a four  hour bus ride down to the wintery weather of NY was did not exactly put me in the best mood. After watching the movie on the slaves, the fight for the memorial and Howard's involvement I truly appreciated it for what it was. My appreciation then turned into a fierce anger because the building was STILL built! Besides that I loved the experience.

                After the burial ground we went to Harlem to SHOP. J This made me VERY happy. I love the street we shopped on (where the Apollo Theater is.) It was full of life and plenty of things to do and buy! There is a lot of culture on the street as well. The only thing the street lacked was good places to eat! We ate Burger King and I nearly threw up! Overall I loved the trip and gained a wider perspective of where my roots originated and the fight these strangers fought for me.

Natalie Nicole Hampton
Nursing Major/Spanish Minor

Last Lecture!!!!!

                Today in Freshman Seminar (our last lecture WAHOO!) Dana Williams spoke to us about the future of the class. With all honesty this was the most boring lecture out of the entire Freshman Seminar course because all she talked about were the projects we were going to do and how we should go about doing them.

                My group in Freshman Seminar is Freshman Inception. We choose this name because:

1.       Inception (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) was by far the BEST MOVIE of 2010.

2.       Inception is a synonym for ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’

When choosing the name we were thinking about what we were going to learn throughout the course and after the first lecture we knew it would be about our roots. In relation to today’s lecture, my group chose our topic for our project. Our question is: How to Eurocentric ideals affect the African American community? With this question there is a focus on beauty.

                We have all watch TV before and have seen commercials. Most advertisements involve a skinny, white woman: blonde hair, blue eyes. With the our society’s obsession with the media a notion develops over time that this is a synomonous image of what is and should be ‘beautiful.’ In order to achieve this ‘look’ people sell various items to the African American community. Examples of these products would be: perm, weave, contact, and skin bleachers. My group is going to go through the psychology of these images and how black people, women in particular, are affected.

Natalie Nicole Hampton

Nursing Major/ Spanish Minor

Research .

Today our speaker was Dana Williams, who is a woman we've seen various times, if not every week that we have had Freshman Seminar and many of those times we have asked her position and why we keep seeing her and today we found out.

In Professor Williams presentation one of the things that stuck to me out of everything was the listed goal of Freshman Orientation which is to encourage all students to embark on a lifetime of independent discovery and to teach us that regardless of our concentration (major/crafts) we can utilize our individual talents to help resolve a problem that we identify as important to ourselves and the community that surrounds us. Overall, I do believe that this goal was met and will continue to improvise itself in all of our daily lives. 

Williams also began to present and go in depth on the group research project that we will soon have to finish as she provided us with the 6 principle components of research and examples to help further our understanding: statement of the problem or challenge, review of the information and discoveries already present, methodology, framework (how information will be displayed/distributed), articulation of thesis and the conclusion. These components are very familiar as they can easily be correlated to the scientific method, but can be seemingly applicable to all situations and problems as these steps sound less scientific and technical. As Professor Williams also went through her powerpoint presentation and lecture I was also able to understand how on a daily instance we apply these principles to everyday life and processes.

Daisa Gainey
Sociology '14