Black History Month scavenger hunt features CMU museum
Grand Haven senior Brianna Johnson (left) and Ypsilanti junior Sarah Pondell (right) work together on part of the instillation for The Midland ACS Centennial Exhibit on March 23, 2022, in Rowe Hall.
On Saturday, Feb. 18, the Central Michigan University Museum is hosting a scavenger hunt as part of the University’s Black History Month programming.
The scavenger hunt is at 1:00 p.m. at the CMU Museum in Rowe hall and is open to CMU students and the surrounding community.
Victoria Boykin is a junior at CMU in the Multicultural Advancement and Cofer scholarship program. She did most of the legwork in planning the scavenger hunt.
Boykin said the event will start with a presentation on lesser-known Black figures from the Civil Rights Movement, and then move on to the game. She said she wants people to get acclimated to the museum as they participate in the scavenger hunt.
“It’s going to be about a 20-30 minute presentation that highlights 11 African American people who did a lot of important work,” Boykin said.
Boykin also referenced a major theme in CMU’s event program for Black History Month.
“A lot of the events this year, they’re really trying to highlight voices that haven’t been heard,” Boykin said. “Because we’ve heard a lot of the same rhetoric with Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, but it’s really trying to highlight the Black community, and not just the ones (people) that are known.”
Rebecca Petrone is an educator and technologist at the CMU museum who helped with organizing the scavenger hunt.
“A lot of these individuals, actually, all of them, Victoria tried to make sure there were ties to Michigan in some way or another,” Petrone said. “Some were maybe just born here, but all of them do have ties to Michigan.”
Boykin said that what she hopes resonates with the audience is how close to home these issues are, including the people they’re going to talk about. At least one of the people in the presentation are from Midland, and Boykin said that learning about them for the program has continued her own education.
Petrone pointed out that the event is designed to put people into groups and get them to socialize.
“I think some people might assume ‘oh it’s a scavenger hunt, I have to have friends to come,’ but you can come by yourself and we are going to be putting people into groups to work with,” Petrone said.
