Emily Ford design chief
Feb. 6, students, faculty, and alumni had the ability to participate in the Black Student Association’s Her-story girls night. The event included food, hanging out, a guest speaker: Aisha Johnson, and was available to the “girls, gays, and theys” around campus.
“We’re going to have a Zoom meeting with Miss Aisha Johnson, whose daughter was an alumnus here” Kennadie Campbell, a junior studying elementary education and Spanish, and also one of the organizers of the event, “she has a scholarship in her name. We are also going to have mock-tails and cookies, and we’re just going to start off Black History Month right by having some girl time with the girls, gays, and theys.”
The event took place at the Carver League House, where the Zoom call was connected with Johnson to share her story and give motivation to the attendees. The story Johnson shared included the hardships that she went through and the ways she overcame them. “And so, I used to get picked on and I used to fight,” Johnson said in describing her hardships, “but not really understanding that I’m fighting because, not only am I picked on, but I don’t have no one to save me.”
She also described her daughter, Era’Shea, an alum of Pittsburg State University, who had unfortunately passed in Oct. 2022. “That was hard, you know,” Johnson said, “just going through all the challenges in life, and thinking of getting over those challenges, but then I have to face my daughter being murdered at the age of 23. You know, that was really a lot. It was a knock down to where I never imagined not being on Earth with my kids.”
“I just didn’t feel like I was worthy enough,” Johnson said when talking about recovering and getting out of the dark place she had been in, “I had to understand that at the age of 38 is when I started loving me. I am 46, so that wasn’t long ago when I started loving me and really accepting who I am, you know, not what others say about me or what they think about me or what I say and think about myself.”
“I wanted to be the one to tell you young ladies,” Johnson said in words of encouragement, “I don’t care what people say about you, don’t care about how they feel about you. You walk through a room; you hold your head up. You raise your chin, your chest out, and you tell yourself ‘I am worthy. I am able to be in any room that I’m allowed in.’”
The whole purpose of this event was to give encouragement to the attendees. It was to show that even though someone might go through the hardest moments of their lives, they can still come back from it, even though it may seem impossible.