UTICA — To celebrate Black History Month, the Mohawk Valley Junior Frontiers and more than 50 community leaders in the Mohawk Valley Frontiers Alumni Impact Collective recently held a pair of major events.

The co-directors of the Junior Frontiers — the Hon. Jawwaad Rasheed; Shanelle Benson Reid, U’Nice Elliott Jefferson; Olivia Paul and James Paul III — organized a trip for 40 students to visit several historical Black colleges and universities (HBCU) in Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia.

Among highlights of the trip, the group visited Spelman College in Atlanta, the second oldest private HBCU for women whose notable alumni include Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, Rep. Stacey Abrams, and Rosalind Brewer, the first African-American CEO of Walgreen’s and Sam’s Club.

While in Georgia, the students also visited Ebenezer Baptist Church, the national historical site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s church where current U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is the presiding senior minister.

In Florida, the Junior Frontiers visited Bethune-Cookman University, and posed in front of a statue of  Mary McLeod Bethune, the philantropist and FDR’s adviser on Colored Affairs who founded the university. While in Alabama, the Junior Frontiers visited the NASA Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville.

Another visit on the college tour was the North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, where the group visited the site of the Woolworth’s lunch counter protest that led to the end of separate accommodation in North Carolina.

Moving on to Virginia Union College, another highlight of the trip involved a meeting with Douglas Wilder, the first African-American governor of Virginia. In the final stage of the trip, the group had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian American Museum in Washington D.C.

Throughout this HBCU tour, students had the opportunity to meet with academic advisers and department heads, and to visit dorms and witness extracurricular activities, including drum lines, sporting events and Greek step shows. Some MV Junior Frontiers members were offered on the spot admission and financial scholarships, according to local officials.

To close out Black History Month and to celebrate women in the community, Hilda M. Jordan, president of the Frontiers Alumi Impact Collobrative hosted a Utica Black History mixer with a multi-generational group of Black community leaders.

Activities included a catered dinner, curator networking, and a modified version of Jeopardy focusing on achievements of Black residents in the Mohawk Valley. 

Luminaries recognized at the event included Herbert Thorpe, a member of the Tuskegee Airman; Robbie Darcy, an Oneida History Center Living Legend; Edward Blackshear, executive director of the Cosmopolitan Center.

The theme of the event was resilence and breaking down barriers, and discussions focused on education, affordable  housing, creating generational wealth, and artistic projects collaborations.