Central Presbyterian Church issued the following announcement on Dec. 20.
The youth at New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, California, celebrated Black History Month in 2021 by portraying their favorite African American trailblazers in a series of videos. Courtesy of New Hope Presbyterian Church
New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, California, was having its regular service online when a young girl wearing a white lab coat and pink turtleneck came onscreen and introduced herself as Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a trailblazing African American.
“Greetings, I am a scientist, and my name is Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, and I am 35 years old,” she said. “I am from North Carolina, and I have a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology. I will go down in history for leading the effort to solve the global pandemic. I led a team of scientists to study and develop the COVID-19 vaccine.”
The “actress” was a participant in New Hope’s living history museum, a series of videos featuring kids, ages 6–14, from the church. The videos, honoring prominent figures in Black history, aired each week last February.
“Every year for Black History Month, we try to do something that involves our youth,” said Carol Nealy, who came up with the idea for the project and serves as moderator for the church’s youth advisory board.
Normally, the kids would have presented the living history museum in person, but the board had to pivot because of the global pandemic, Nealy said. Families were asked to record their children at home and then send the videos to the church’s media team to be woven into online services. Kids wrote their own scripts and decided how they wanted to present themselves on camera. It was impressive “how our youth just really embraced the concept, whether it was talking about someone who they admired or whether it was actually embodying the person” by dressing up in costume, Nealy said.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Central Presbyterian Church
