In line, people laughed while chatting with their friends. At the tables, people sat to savor the food they had just piled on their plates. Next to the DJ booth, people danced to the beats blaring from the speakers.
The Cookout in the Quad on Sept. 13 was the finale of the Welcome Black week collectively hosted by DePaul’s Black student organizations. The annual event kicks off the school year and allows Black students to meet new people and build community, said Dana Wolfe, the Black Student Union treasurer and vice president.
“The Cookout is something that is highly anticipated because it’s one of the first really big, collective Black things that we do,” Wolfe said.
According to DePaul Institutional Research & Marketing Analytics, Black students make up 8.82% of the university’s total student population. Wolfe said the organizers plan The Cookout with the intention of letting students know there is “a strong Black community” at DePaul in which they can participate.
“At DePaul, there’s not a lot of Black students in general,” DePaul senior Jordan Perkins said. “The Cookout allows Black students to interact with each other so they can get familiarized with everybody who’s Black on campus and learn about Black Student Union events.”
Perkins, who attended The Cookout, said that it also gave non-Black students the chance to learn about a culture outside of their own.
“It’s not only Black students here,” Perkins said. “There’s a lot of students with other ethnicities too, so it’s a community-based thing where students from all walks of life can come and have a good time.”
Within Black culture, cookouts are casual familial or communal gatherings which revolve around food and music. Inspired by this concept, the organizers aimed to create a space where students could “let loose” and “just vibe on the Quad,” Wolfe said.
“(At cookouts) you can just come as yourself, be relaxed, enjoy good food, good music and good vibes with the people that you love and care about,” DePaul junior Robert Davis Jr. said.
While enjoying the food and music, students also got the chance to play lawn games, run through an obstacle course, challenge friends to a bouncy boxing match and purchase a custom airbrushed T-shirt.
“It’s been a good spread,” Davis Jr. said. “I did some of the planning last year, so I know how tedious the planning can be, and I think they did really well. I love the airbrushing stand the most.”
While the event brought Black students together, Wolfe said the planning also united DePaul’s various Black student organizations.
“One thing about the Black community (at DePaul) to understand is that we work very close with each other,” Wolfe said, noting that the Black Student Union collaborated with the Black Cultural Center, Sankofa and other Black organizations to plan the event.
Seeking to improve on past years’ Cookouts, the organizers considered the “community’s input” when planning this year’s event, Wolfe said. Among other things, she said they upgraded the food spread to include char-roasted chicken, allowed students to submit song requests to the DJ and incorporated “fit checks” to motivate students to “dress their best.”
“From last year, it’s a very big improvement, from the food to everything else,” Perkins said.
While they feel that DePaul could “do much more” to uplift its Black students, Davis Jr. said The Cookout was a “good start” by “allowing us to have this space and be with each other in unity.” But they also had a suggestion for future culture-based events.
“Even though this is great, I’d love to see more diversity,” Davis Jr. said. “I wish we could have more multicultural events, activities and organizations.”
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Nial K Castle • Sep 23, 2024 at 11:12 am
Awesome article