On February 20, a new event emerged. MFS’s Black Student Union held a Spirit Week dedicated to celebrating Black History Month, led by BSU Leaders Eva Vanterpool ’23 & Artese Brown ’23, along with BSU Social Media Manager Michaéla McFadden ’23.

Originating from Vanterpool’s desire to honor the original “Negro History Week,” the 1926 inspiration for Black History Month, the Black History Month Spirit Week included theme days and events for the Upper School community. According to Vanterpool, “[Negro History Week] … include[s] the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. I wanted to do something to honor that, so I thought we could do a Spirit Week and have theme days and do events.”

The Spirit Week featured six theme days: Blackout Day, a day for all students to wear black-colored clothing; Wavy Wednesday, a day for BSU members to wear bonnets, durags, and headwraps; Throwback Thursday, a day for all students to wear 1990s/2000s themed clothing; T-shirt day, a day for all students to wear a Black History Month themed T-shirt organized in partnership with MLK club; HBCU Day, a day for all students to wear paraphernalia from HBCU schools; and Culture Day, a day for all students to wear clothing representing their cultural identities.

According to Vanterpool, some of the theme days were voted on by BSU members. Many BSU members voted to have Wavy Wednesday and voted for the T-shirt design used for T-shirt day.

McFadden shared that from what she could see, “Throwback Thursday was a pretty good turnout,” and that “T-shirt day [had lots of participation] too, especially from faculty and staff.”

On February 28, BSU hosted a Family Feud event for the Upper School community to spectate, and a few students were also contestants. Vanterpool tied the origins of the event to Quiz Bowl: “Quiz bowl … is a fun event that’s not super active or doesn’t require props and to be outside or something. We thought that it was something that we [could] replicate … but we wanted to do something that was like Family Feud – a staple in a lot of Black households to watch with the family.”

The Family Feud questions referenced both Black culture and multimedia. The Family Feud event was held in Room 13 and was packed wall-to-wall with students showing support. Vanterpool hadn’t expected such a turnout: “I thought it was just going to be mostly BSU members, but … some people just from the community [came].”

Brown took the role of Steve Harvey, the host of Family Feud: “It was a great experience. I feel like the people brought their A-game, and it was something that I enjoyed hosting. I loved working with the underclassmen … and I loved their ability to stay engaged in the fun activities that we do.”

According to the BSU leaders, the success of this year’s Black History Month Spirit Week will likely lead to a larger one next year. Even though they will graduate long before next year’s Black History Month, Brown said he hopes to see a bigger event when he visits MFS again next year, and Vanterpool said she hopes that next year’s BSU leaders can plan for a Black History Month event “that grows to be something even bigger, like the whole month, maybe just having a ton of events or things that can incorporate the whole community.”