On Wednesday, Feb. 25, the Black Student Union delivered the annual African American Heritage Assembly. Lauded by many members of the school community, the assembly featured a number of rich and impressive performances by a variety of groups at WJ.

The Jazz Ensemble began the assembly’s festivities, playing Wayne Shorter’s jazz piece “One by One”. The musical reading was followed by a rendition of the song “Patience” from the movie Dreamgirls performed by students Monique Logie, Evan Boone-Lewis, Darien Djourabtchi and Celeste Rubino. Pop Fly, a singing and dancing group, took the stage next, performing Shakira’s 2010 World Cup hit “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”. Students Tony Smith and Katell Anane then recited the poem “Africa my Africa”, with Anane delivering the poem in French and Smith translating it into English, line by line. 

Following various performances, students took the stage to discuss the importance of unity and African impact on music and culture over time. To honor this impact, senior Monique Logie sang a solo with a guitar accompaniment by Zack Cain, and Junior Greg Coulter got the crowd grooving with a performance of Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up.” Various songs followed these two solo performances, including Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” sung by senior Meaghan McCann, John Legend’s “Ordinary People” performed by Evan Boone-Lewis and Celeste Rubino, and a solo performance of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s in need of Love Today” by senior Darien Djourabtchi. An African dance followed numerous songs, then senior Gloria Okocha gave life to an African poem. The Step Team gave the final individual performance of the assembly.

To close the event, all the acts came back on to take their bows and sing one final song, “We Are the World”, then walked off in the wake of the audience’s applause.

Though students and staff were overall impressed with the assembly, senior and member of BSU Monique Logie says that most people’s favorite part was the various genres of music represented throughout. If she could change one thing, Logie would have liked the event to go more in depth on the many African cultures.

“My favorite part of the assembly was singing ‘Patience’, we dedicated that song to Noah Marks so it really meant a lot to me,” said Logie.