Tomorrow Bree Newsome, The Bree Newsome, will be coming to Colgate, and I’m so excited that I literally do not know what to do with myself and, more importantly, what to wear. If you somehow managed to live under a rock this summer, Bree Newsome is an activist from North Carolina that gained attention when she climbed up the South Carolina State Capitol flagpole and took down the Confederate flag after the mass murder of nine African-American worshippers by a white supremacist terrorist.
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| Bree Newsome EVENTS: Brown Bag, "Rosa, Martin, and Bree: Civil Rights in 2015" : Sept. 29th @ 11:30am in the Center for WMST Presentation, "Love in a Time of Revolution" : Sept. 29th @ 4:30pm in Love Auditorium |
After Newsome came down from the flagpole, she and her spotter James Tyson were arrested on site. Newsome’s brave act went viral, and every newspaper, blog, vlog, and magazine wanted a piece of Newsome. When asked by a reporter on why she didn’t just wait for lawmakers to vote to take it down, Newsome perfectly stated, “What is there to vote on? There’s doing the right thing, and there’s doing the wrong thing. It’s time for people to have the courage. Everybody who knows what the right thing is to do, we have to step up in love and nonviolence. We have to do the right thing, or else it won’t stop. Every day that flag hangs up there is an endorsement of hate.” This then brought about dialogue of what does it mean that in this day and age something as hateful as the Confederate flag can still find a home in front of a state capitol? It also made me think about how sometimes we can become very complicit in inequality. Why did anyone think it was necessary to wait for the government to decide to do what is morally correct, when it’s been pretty clear with the non-indictments of police officers that killed unarmed black people, that morals are not the government’s strong suit.
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| Bree Newsome, activist, filmmaker, songwriter |
Newsome is not new to activism, but since her literal climb to fame, the activist has been very busy, she has recently spoken at Wesleyan University and Agnes Scott University. She was also on a panel, which included Melissa Harris-Perry, at Wake Forest University and in August she did an interview with Essence. It will be interesting to find out her insights about the Black Lives Matter movement and to see what she is up to now. I do not know about any of you but I am beyond excited and honor that she is going to the middle of nowhere to enlighten us.
Also, disclaimer: considering that Bree Newsome is the essence of Black Girl Magic, I might need someone to stand by and collect my edges, my life, and my composure when she takes them all away from me.
- Ashleandra Opoku '17, Multicultural and LGBTQ Affairs Intern
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