The article that I wrote to kick start Black History Month, “Retrospective: What fueled the legacy of black leadership at Iowa State?” was meaningful to me.

There were things that I did not know yet garnered my interest. As a student that identifies as an African American and to learn what those before me have endured, it serves as an opportunity to understand what fuels the current leadership I have witnessed in black students and in students of color as a whole.

The piece not only served as an opportunity for readers to learn about events from the past, but it analyzes how the Daily covered what was happening on campus during this time.

It is very much known that students of color have felt neglected in coverage in the Daily’s news cycle for years.

I have heard those words from my peers since the beginning of my duration at the Daily.

Jane Cox, a former Iowa State music and theatre professor, responded to the story, rightfully so since she was mentioned throughout the story.

One of the first things that Cox pointed out was confusion about my statement and how I did not add how Thomas Hill became vice president for student affairs in 1997.

Since this was a retrospect, from the lens of 1968, black students had demanded a black administrator and by the end of 1969, that was not fulfilled by the university.

It wouldn’t be until 29 years later that the demands were brought forth by the university. It was during a time diversity issues and activism were brought to light. Some would also add the university was in a midst of a public relations disaster during this time.

In many scenarios, it is more important to recognize the length of time it can take for change to take place than when the change finally comes.

Celia N. Naylor-Ojurongbe said in her essay to the Daily that during the formal presentation of the “Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Suffrage Movement” there was little to none reference of racism. She also said that when ethnicity was brought to the forefront it was about Irish/Irish-American women.

By choosing to just define racism by the dictionary definition, not only did it cause anger and disappointment (which are common feelings experienced by people of color during discussions on race to this day), but Cox chose to eliminate dialogue on the complexity of race.

Racism is more than just the belief that one’s skin color is superior to another’s.

It is enslaving and treating African Americans as second class citizens for centuries.

It is enacting Jim Crow laws in the American South.

It is even allowing for real estate to allow redlining, which barred many African Americans from getting mortgage loans and condensed black populations to certain neighborhoods.

The potential conversation that frankly should have happened publicly was more important than just trying to interpret the writings and speeches of Chapman Catt.

The most interesting thing that Cox said in her response was that Chapman Catt dedicated her life to fighting for the rights for all women to vote.

If that was the case, why was it that both my grandmother and mother, born African Americans, were still barred from voting?

Why did my grandmother, growing up in Mississippi, hear and witness accounts of African Americans being harmed or killed due to their attempt to vote?

If all women received the right to vote, there would not been the Voting Acts Right, which was passed 45 years after the ratifying of the 19th Amendment.

If all women received the right to vote, I would not have been the first woman in my lineage to be born with guaranteed rights to vote.

And I was born nearly three years after Chapman Catt’s name dedication in October of 1995.

When you state how I mention how the writer of the UHURU article was receiving threatening calls and you state the physical and property damage that you experienced, it is disheartening.

No one can escape from seeing violence, and unfortunately even today people on both sides of the events tend to result to violence instead of other peaceful methods.

Is it a coincidence that violence is engraved in our society?

For Cox to say that in my article I seemed to give no indication of lectures, panels and such discussing race in the suffrage movement is slight fabrication.

I did mention from Naylor-Ojurongbe’s account that there was little discussion about Chapman Catt’s alleged racism throughout that dedication week.

Cox’s list of lectures and panels were all following the dedication ceremony.

Angela Davis, scholar and notable member of the Black Panther Party, was one of the speakers that visited a year after the name change.

During her lecture, Davis told the audience that Iowa State should have been grateful for the September 29th Movement for its work with racial debate.

Another guest lecturer, Rosalyn Terbong-Penn, an African American historian of black women in the Suffrage Movement, said the Chapman Catt debate had valuable lessons within it. She said to not forget what happened and be prepared when someone else decides to recreate what happened in the past, urging those in attendance to understand politics and using it as a tool to spread awareness and accomplish goals.

Cox talked in the second to last paragraph about her encounters with “outstanding black leadership” and how the Daily failed to cover them.

As an African-American student, I would love to know the names of these people.

What I consider a failure is when an interest strikes in my fellow African American peers at Iowa State to research those before us and there is little or no information about the other students before us.

While Iowa State embraces George Washington Carver and Jack Trice, so many other African American students and their accomplishments have been neglected and left unknown.

I would love to be given a list of black leaders who were an inspiration to all of whom they met.

Send their names my way.

While there is a chance they were not properly recognized in their respective moments, it will be a true failure to never acknowledge them.

It has become a trend and it a trend that has to come to an end.