The UC Santa Barbara Office of Black Student Development hosted its annual opening ceremony for Black History Month on Feb. 2 in the Student Resource Building’s Multipurpose Room.
OBSD’s coordinator of Black Student Life Julianna Swilley announced the events that will be happening throughout Black History Month. Shengyu Zhang / Daily Nexus
The ceremony started off with live music from a student band which played throughout the event. The band is led by Dylan Williams, a student intern for the Office of Black Student Development (OBSD).
After attendees got food provided by Country Catering Company, OBSD Coordinator of Black Student Life Julianna Swilley led the attendees in singing the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Swilley announced the events that will happen throughout Black History Month before introducing the guest lecturer, Black Studies assistant professor Ingrid Banks. Banks has been at UCSB since 2002. She told two anecdotes relating to important historical figures in the Black community.
In the first story, titled “Jackie Robinson’s Team,” Banks described when she learned that her grandfather referred to the Los Angeles Dodgers as Jackie Robinson’s team. Robinson was the first African American player to integrate Major League Baseball.
“Robinson’s achievement was all of our achievement,” Banks said. “It was an example of Black excellence on and off the baseball field.”
In the second story, titled “Rosa: the tired, old, Black lady,” Banks showed how the story of Rosa Parks differed between her white teacher’s retelling and her grandparents’ retelling, as her teacher downplayed the reasoning behind Parks’ protest.
“My grandparents referred to Rose Parks as Mrs. Parks, [while] my substitute teacher referred to her only as Rosa,” Banks explained. “The young perky white substitute teacher erased the history of Rosa Parks’ protests and radicalism in challenging segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama.”
Banks then called for attendees to acknowledge the good and the bad parts of Black history.
“We must understand that the triumphs rise out of struggle,” Banks said. “We made it in spite of persistent and stubborn anti-Blackness. Black Gaucho excellence is a thing. It is alive and thriving.”
The last activity in the ceremony before attendees dispersed to mingle was Black trivia. Kabo Mosetse, a fourth-year actuarial science major, was one of the students who participated.
“It was fun,” Mosetse said. “I wasn’t expecting the trivia to be specific to UCSB, so that kind of threw me off.”
After the trivia, many started working on writing what Swilley labeled “legacy letters.” Swilley explained that these are letters that will be preserved and opened in five years for future Black students at UCSB.
Attendees wrote “Legacy Letters” that will be preserved and opened in five years for future UCSB students. Shengyu Zhang / Daily Nexus
Second-year biology major Essence Tibbs wrote in her letter how she hopes to pursue higher education and “to remember to live with purpose and just be happy.”
Onah Nwapa, a second-year biology major, expressed wanting to be content with herself.
“I just made sure to write how I should be proud of myself for all the hard work I’m going to do over the next five years,” Nwapa said.
Swilley said that she hopes the event and other Black History Month events will encourage attendees to stay connected with their communities while celebrating and acknowledging their history.
“It’s rooted in struggle, but one of the things I think holds true is that we were successful and [that’s] encouraged through community and sticking together,” Swilley said.
A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the Feb. 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.
