It is late on a Tuesday evening, but the four students sitting in a circle in Makuu, the black cultural center on campus, still have work to do. They discuss which black student groups and minority coalitions have been contacted and take notes diligently.
The students are the newly elected board members of UMOJA, an organization -- whose name means "unity" in Swahili -- that seeks to unite the many black student groups on campus. In their upcoming term, these four individuals are determined to make the organization live up to its name.
"The overall thing is unity," said Wharton freshman Natalie Wilson, the group's new correspondence chairwoman. "It's not only reaching out to the groups under us, but also reaching out to all the minority groups on campus."
In 1991, two Penn students created UMOJA in response to the Rodney King beating and trial. According to Crystal Wyatt, Makuu program coordinator and group adviser, the court decision to acquit four police officers was a "wake-up call for black students on campus."
Black student organizations felt a need to "come together under a common calendar, agenda and political voice," she said. The organization has fluctuated between periods of success and failure ever since.
Wyatt said that part of the reason for UMOJA's bumpy past has been apathy. "People would lose interest in that commonality," she said. "If there was a hot topic or political issue, it was easy to get motivated, but once the issue was resolved, everyone would go back to their respective corners."
Wyatt expressed hope, though, for the future of the organization. "The new board is young and vibrant," she said. "They are interested in the history and the future of UMOJA and they want people to feel that they are part of a large body and not standing on an island alone."
The newly-elected board consists of Wilson, College freshman Jerome Wright as Political Chairman, College freshman Hollis Savage as Planning and Facilitating Chairman and College sophomore Vanessa Sarfoh as Admissions Chairwoman. A fifth position, the funding chair, is currently vacant.
Wright said that he decided to run for a board position after watching students in front of College Hall protest the mistaken apprehension of College sophomore Warith Deen Madyun last semester.
"It was a highly successful demonstration, but it could have been so much more," Wright said. "I saw the potential in that. Focusing on that vision, that's what inspired me to run."
The 21 student groups that make up UMOJA are diverse in purpose. Constituent groups range from Destination Hip Hop to the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity to the Black Student League.
Former Planning and Facilitating Chairwoman Dara Norwood, a College junior, said that the variety of groups constitutes the "tricky part" of UMOJA, since "every group has its own agenda."
UMOJA also works with the greater Penn community. Board members have seats on campus bodies such as the Minority Recruitment Committee in the Admissions Office, the Undergraduate Assembly Steering Committee, the Committee of Public Safety and the University Council.
The new board members say that they must strengthen UMOJA internally before focusing on getting their message out to the broader Penn community.
"We need to get all of the groups back on board," Wright said. "People have been dissatisfied, people have been disengaged. We need to show the groups that we are pertinent, that we still have an important job to do in creating a presence on campus and disseminating information from a unified front to the community."
Wright said that UMOJA now has the chance to become a "collaborative force" instead of a "governing body" and that there is the potential "for 21 groups to be behind one voice."
While the board members want to focus on supporting their constituent groups -- delegating responsibility to a greater number of students, reaching out to more members of the black community and creating a "super calendar" so that group events do not conflict -- they also have new ideas they would like to implement.
Open community forums, leadership retreats, and a UMOJA Week celebrating black culture are all ideas in the works.
