By JONATHAN ROWE

Washington Daily News

 

 

The second-annual Black History Month celebration at Beaufort County Community College Thursday night brought several organizations and figures together, including East Carolina University’s renowned football coach Ruffin McNeil, the event’s keynote speaker.

Men of Success, a male-mentoring club at BCCC, sponsored the event themed “Breaking Every Chain.” The club seeks to promote achievement among the college’s minority male students.

“It (the event) means the celebration of African-Americans throughout our history,” said Christopher Lynch, a second-year member of MOS. “We want to celebrate their lives and what they’ve achieved.”

According to Daniel Wilson, MOS advisor and director of admissions and recruitment at BCCC, the song “Breaking Every Chain” by Tasha Cobbs inspired this year’s theme.

“We thought it would be a perfect symbol, or correlation, of what black history means — not necessarily the whole tangible side of it, but more the mental and spiritual side of it,” Wilson said.

The celebration featured a mime dance by CJ “Devyn Praise,” performances by several area choirs, a testimonial by BCCC student Daniel Garza Salazar and a message of achieving success on and off the playing field by ECU head football coach, Ruffin McNeil.

“Any time I get a chance to reach young people, I am anxious and looking forward to it,” McNeil said. “It means a lot. It’s positive power, positive thinking, positive energy — it’s surrounded by a positive environment. It’s a part of my values and part of the way I design our program there (at ECU).”

Salazar spoke on breaking his “chains” in relation to integrating himself into American culture throughout his life. He gave an example of his transformation by saying he found himself wanting a cheese biscuit rather than traditional Mexican dishes.

“No chain is unbreakable,” Salazar concluded.