Alexis Gatson performs "Lord Why Did You Make Me Black?" at the Memorial Union at Emporia State Tuesday afternoon. Gatson won a Rosa Parks Scholarship Award for her performance.
Through word and image and heartfelt performance, the message came through again and again: All people are worthy of respect.
Three students of Emporia State University were given $200 scholarships for expressing that message especially well. Traci Barrett, Monique Lloyd and Alexis Gatson each received the Rosa Parks Scholarship in a ceremony Tuesday.
The entries in the scholarship contest had to address that legacy, but could do so in any fashion.
“We wanted to give students a chance to use their talents without fear of grades or GPA requirements,” said Elizabeth Nelson, ESU’s multicultural programs and services coordinator.
Scholarships were given for visual, written and performance arts.
Traci Barrett, a graphic arts major from Wellington, won the award for visual arts. Her creation showed a black hand grasping a white hand against a background of historical images, such as a black civil rights march or police beating black protesters with billy clubs. Inside those images can be seen the words of the Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech and the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ...”
The poster began as a class assignment to show something she was passionate about, Barrett said.
“The passion is just the way I was raised,” Barrett said. “I don’t see other’s differences. I don’t judge people until I get a chance to meet them and know them.”
What she has noticed, she said, is the way other people react.
“I’m dating a black man and I see a lot of stares,” said Barrett, who is white. “I didn’t realize that happened until I was in the mix.”
Alexis Gatson won the performance arts category with a rendition of “Lord, Why Did You Make Me Black?” by RuNett Nia Ebo. The monologue depicts a black person who has grown to see her appearance as a curse, only to discover that God sees it as a blessing.
As Gatson finished the last emotional words of the poem, the audience rose to its feet in applause.
“I was nervous,” she admitted afterward. “I was scared.”
Gatson first performed the piece for a black history program at her church. Like the author, Gatson is also black, but to her the piece speaks to anyone’s feeling of isolation.
“I’ve dealt with the issue of being a teenage girl, trying to fit the mold of what others want you to be,” she said. “I want to help others know it’s OK to be who you are.”
Gatson is a secondary education major from Kansas City, Kansas.
The final winner, library and information management student Monique Lloyd, was unable to attend. Lloyd is part American Indian and part French-Canadian and wrote a short story based on her experiences as a child, “Traveling to the City of Angels.”
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