In celebration of Black History Month, LBCC’s Black Student Success Center hosted a film screening of “10,000 Black Men Named George,” on Feb. 11.
Labor center coordinator Valentina Flores organized and collaborated with the Black Student Success center for the event and provided an introduction to the film.
Directed by Robert Townshend, the film portrays the history of the first Black led union recognized across the United States.
Flores chose the film to best highlight lesser known parts of American labor history and specifically Black labor history.
“I think we often forget a lot about how much Black history goes into labor because many times the stories aren’t told and the history is removed.
“So I wanted to make sure that we were able to put on an event that would be able to look back at the history that we do have and raise those kinds of voices,” said Flores.
Flores seeks to grow the in person outreach of the labor center this year as it was focused mainly online when it first opened in 2020.
With their only office being on TTC, the labor center works with students in trade programs but as part of their outreach seek to work alongside professions with prominent unions such as education and film.
Student worker Londan Wingfield helped set up the event which provided additional insight on the importance of highlighting marginalized voices and combating stereotypes.
“It’s not only beyond important but it’s also feeding how we interact with our people because we’re educated. We understand different things, we understand stereotypes because we know that they’re not true…it provides a lot of context,” said Wingfield.
President of BSSC Jonathan Brown, also helped set up for the event, describes the center as having a communal environment.
“It feels like a community, where I belong, where I can meet friends, fellow people, we can do our homework here, eat here, we can chill, we can laugh,” said Brown.
Free refreshments were provided for all in attendance of the screening as well as an open space to catch up on school work.
The Black Student Success Center plans on hosting more events for Black History Month, including another film screening with more details to come.