Students step for Black History Month

Elementary school students are stepping it up to celebrate Black History Month.

The Chapel Hill Public Library hosted the step dancing program Saturday to allow Communiversity Youth Program students to share their talent with the community. The library wanted to host an interactive program for Black History Month.

“This was an excellent way of bringing in something that has traditional cultural ties and has stayed alive and grown and evolved over the years,” said Dan Siler, marketing and communications manager for the Chapel Hill Public Library.

The Communiversity Youth Program is an after-school program sponsored by the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. The program seeks to educate elementary school students in African and African-American culture and history.

Chris Wallace, Communiversity and undergraduate programs manager, said the nontraditional programs, such as cooking and dancing, that Communiversity provides helps students learn skills they wouldn’t learn from traditional programs.

“We want to be able to provide programming that helps (the students) to identify culture,” Wallace said.

Step has a strong tradition, dating back to the early 1900s, when fraternities and sororities from historically black colleges and universities adopted the percussive style of dance. Wallace said stepping has its origins traced back to Africa.

Members from the Mu Zeta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. and the Theta Pi chapter Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. provided instruction to the students on stepping.

“(Stepping) is about having that confidence and that courage to actually get out there in front of people and do something great,” said Shy’Kiya Lee, a sorority member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Mandi Stanley, another sorority member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, said the girls they mentored in step were shy in the beginning but now hold their heads high.

“It’s showing them that things might be tough at first. You might face adversity, but if you practice hard and dedicate yourself to something, you can really do anything you put your mind to,” Stanley said.

During the program, students stood in front of the audience and said what they wanted to be when they grew up. Many wanted to be doctors and lawyers, while others wanted to be singers and professional athletes.

Boateng Kubi, fraternity member of Alpha Phi Alpha, said teaching the boys how to step was about making connections with them.

“I think the idea is to use stepping as a medium to form personal relationships with them,” Kubi said.

Wallace said Communiversity wants to equip students with lessons they can take to their classrooms and teach their peers.

“By and large, part of what happened today was a history lesson,” Wallace said.

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