Richard Smith Contributing writer

In Roanoke College’s Pickle Lounge on Thursday, March 2, students and a few others gathered to play a Family Feud-style gameshow on Black History and African-American culture. Around 30 people attended, many of them excited and talkative throughout the entire evening event.

Two teams of two played four rounds at a time, and 16 rounds were played overall, which made for an hour-long event. Teams were quizzed on their knowledge of prominent African-American cultural figures – athletes, actors, authors, civil-rights activists and others – in addition to a relevant mix of miscellaneous topics. For those who scored the highest, there were gift baskets with food and other items inside. Other competitors received free t-shirts as a participation prize. Despite a few technical issues and a rather small venue, energy was high the entire hour, and both contestants and audience members managed to learn or remember a thing or two about Black History.

The event was organized by the college’s Black Student Alliance (BSA). It was one event that came off the back end of Black History Month in February, as BSA member and gameshow co-host Karla Williams explained. “With BSA, we have raised a lot of different events throughout the month of February, and we thought that a game show would be more of an engaging way to get people to interact with Black History, learning things they might not have known or remembering things they might not have remembered,” said Williams.

“The Black Student Alliance is an organization on campus where we invite people to a learning community where you can come and learn about another culture,” said Najee Fuller, another BSA member and the host of the gameshow. “The Black Student Alliance isn’t necessarily closed off to anyone – you can be of any race and join the Black Student Alliance. It’s really just to inform, essentially, and to get people interested in learning about different cultures on campus.” And as the BSA shows, broadening cultural awareness can take many forms and can even be a little fun.