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Black History Month typically has been a time to reflect on the achievements of prominent African-Americans from our nation’s past, such as Harriet Tubman, or from the present, such as President Barack Obama.
This annual observance is celebrated in the U.S. and throughout the world on military installations in February.
For this year’s celebration, the Department of Defense turns to the future with the theme of “Reaching Out to Youth: A Strategy for Excellence.”
Reaching out to youth of all races and backgrounds is what U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern’s Equal Opportunity officer Terri Guy does when she gets the chance.
“Think about it. Someone touched the lives of prominent people when they were young – helped to guide them in the positive direction they were going,” she said, explaining why she volunteered to assist Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe seniors at the U.S. Africa Command’s Educational Forum Feb. 7 at the Patch Theatre on Patch Barracks in Stuttgart. “We have to take that same enthusiasm and vision with our youth.”
Ms. Guy also volunteered to talk to middle school students about diversity during the 86th Airlift Wing’s Drug Education for Youth monthly class held Nov. 21 at the Health and Awareness Center on Ramstein.
“I think it’s absolutely important to understand people and their cultures,” said Ms. Guy, who has lived in Europe and Asia and visited Africa and The Middle East. “It just helps us in making decisions and in personal relationships with each other, and the more we understand each other the easier it is to tolerate differences in each other.”
Ms. Guy told students she learned a lot about diversity growing up in Baltimore and found learning about different races, cultures, religions and politics as an adventure.
“I absolutely believe that America is the greatest nation in the world and that’s based on traveling all over the world,” she said.
Senior Master Sgt. Shon Barnwell, from Headquarters, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and a DEFY counselor, invited Ms. Guy to speak after meeting her on a trip and learning about her job.
“As a military member who has a dependent child here, it is important to me how she relates to others because she is not only a representation of me, but also of the Air Force, Department of Defense and United States,” Sergeant Barnwell said.
Ms. Guy accepted the invitation to speak because “I just welcome every opportunity to talk to kids and get them started on the right path.”
Black History Month was founded in 1926 by U.S. historian Carter G. Woodson. Mr. Woodson chose the second week of February because it marked the birthdays of two Americans who greatly influenced the lives and social condition of African Americans – former President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.
