2020 Black Alumni Asso. & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. awards

The summer of my first year at Denison I had the opportunity to travel to Paris to participate in a 6-week international business course at the American University of Paris. That was my first time ever traveling outside of the country and experiencing a completely different culture from my own. It was my first time being immersed in a culture where the dominant language wasn’t my own. It was a complete culture shift for me, and it exposed me to being comfortable with the uncomfortable. That 6-weeks was a time of introspection, learning who I was, and immense growth. I was also able to translate the skills I learned in Paris to my life at Denison and that has also helped me to grow as a scholar and as an active social member to the Denison community.

In May of 2018, I began working with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s Safe and Healthy Ohio ballot initiative for my high school’s senior project. The ballot initiative was a means to help end the opioid epidemic in Ohio by introducing legislation that would divest from prisons and invest in communities. I came on to the initiative as a student intern, but the lead organizers of the Cleveland branch of the initiative brought me on as the volunteer organizer. In this role, I located events to canvass as well as helped to secure volunteers to assist us with canvassing. In July of 2018, we were able to secure enough valid signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot. During my time with Safe and Healthy Ohio, I learned that the work must be done in order to see progress. Though the initiative did not pass, it significantly changed the direction of prison reform and rehabilitation in Ohio.

I am involved in numerous organizations that allow me to interact with many different groups of people. I am a member of NPHC, a council that is built on the foundation of helping the community around them. My specific chapter has held programs such as “Black Men’s Mental Health” at the Ohio State University. It was a successful event and it was concluded with great feedback from the OSU community. Being a member of NPHC and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc, has allowed to implement change not only at Denison, but also at a neighboring university.

One of my other big involvements on campus is being a part of the Big Red Denison Football team. While competing a high and competitive level, we still find time to help the Denison Community as well as the neighboring communities. We have a program where we partner with First-Year office to help freshmen move into their dorms. We also do a project at a Newark elementary school where we come in and read books to children.

I have done a lot of service work in my community because I truly believe in giving back. For years, I was an assistant supervisor for a non-profit organization called the Food Project. The mission of the Food Project is to create a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. I worked as a leader to help grow and harvest fresh, local, and affordable food to give to my community. As an organization, we grow over 200,000 pounds of food each year without chemical fertilizers or pesticides and donate thousands of pounds of produce to local hunger relief organizations. We also build raised-bed gardens for residents and organizations, offering garden-based educational programming, and providing opportunities for people to use SNAP/EBT benefits to purchase fresh food.

The work that I did was very meaningful and was much needed in my community, where there was an abundant amount of fast food restaurants and not a lot of healthy organic options. I also led many workshops around the city of Lynn to educate people about the food insecurity and injustice around the world. This summer, I was fortunate to go back and do research on food and race injustice and advocate for food insecurity screening in the hospital in my community. I have been so blessed to have been able to give back to my community.

At Denison I serve as a Sister In Dialogue Executive Board member, First-Year Office Assistant, and Women’s Soccer team Manager. Being a Sister In Dialogue board member has allowed me to open up a safe and accepting space for those women who do identify as Women Of Color at a Predominately White institution. This space has allowed many women and myself the opportunity to be heard and be given validation of their feelings and goals.

Working as the manager of the women’s soccer team allows me to engage in interactions with sport and health professionals as it is related to my major Health, Exercise, and Sport Studies. This social engagement allows me to build a bridge between Denison and a variety of communities so that all doors of communication are open.

During my first semester, I accidentally took Issues in Feminism instead of Black Studies. Although I was upset at first, I now know whole-heartedly I made the right decision. I can honestly say that this was the class I looked forward to attending the most, the class that had the best discussions, and by far my favorite class so far at Denison. Before this course, I never thought much of the term “feminism.” I always assumed feminism meant that both boys and girls should be able to get the same pay, should be able to wear the same clothes, and that men were now perceived as inferior to women. Before this class, I never considered myself a feminist because I did not know what it entailed. When I thought of feminism, I envisioned twenty or so Caucasian, middle to upper-middle class women who sat in a room complaining about how unjust society was. This is to say, before this class, I was oblivious to the fact that feminism is so much more than the oppression of white women. I learned feminism is for everyone, for all those oppressed, for all women, all colors, all socio-economic status, all abled and non-abled bodies — everyone.

During my time at Denison University, I was the First-Year President of the African Student Association and I am currently the Minister of Affairs for the Black Student Union, where I hope to continue my leadership next year as the Chief Minister. I have also held a job in both the Office of Gender and Sexuality (OGS) as well as the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (MCSA). Both are offices designed to assist the campus lives of marginalized students.