Black Excellence Gala

Story by Sley Vega

Very rarely do you walk in a room at the University of Oregon and see more than one Black person in the room, let alone over 50.

Every year, the Black Student Union puts on the Black Excellence Gala to highlight the accomplishments of Black students and professors at the university. This year's gala was held on February 19th in the Erb Memorial Union on UO’s campus. 

As a predominantly white institution, such illustrious celebrations of diversity can be few and far between. The Black Student Union puts on events like this to bring people together. Event co-director Tori Walters said, “It was an opportunity for us to celebrate our black community here since we're so small, we have to be able to have other black people know that there is a black population here so they can know that they do have a safe place here.”

The importance of a safe space and gathering with like individuals was a theme that ran through the entire event. Multiple faculty members spoke about their research and efforts to introduce more of these spaces into the UO community. Another common theme was the idea of “taking up space.”

Throughout the highlights, presentations, awards, songs, and poems of the night, students were constantly reminded to step into the spotlight and never take a backseat to their peers or allow others to dim their light or accomplishments.

The event itself, which takes months of planning, is a favorite among the Black Student Union members. Tori commented “Co-hosting was so fun,” Walters said. “Seeing everything that I contributed to, from designing the slides, creating the program and awards to gathering our speakers, performers and student orgs.” 

The importance of being represented on campus, through your peers, GE’s, professors and higher-ups on campus, does not go unnoticed. 

Members of the Black Student Union, as well as members of other organizations, kept reminding the audience to use the spaces available to them as a way to create similar events in the future. Walters and the entire Black Student Union said all black students at UO should become involved in black student organizations as a way to get to know people, build a community and use available resources to enrich their college experience.

“Being able to get a lot of the black campus population together is really important in getting people to create new connections with others and be able to build new bonds and relationships,” Walters said. “Not only that, but to hear about the resources that we have on campus from some of our black faculty and even knowing that we DO have black faculty and professors.”