119 Euclid Helps Create a New Experience for People of Color 119 Euclid Helping to Bring Black Culture Back to Syracuse University

Nadia Deas: Syracuse University student Cameron Gray didn’t really care about homecoming week until now.

Cameron Gray: Homecoming for me, my first year I was like when is homecoming? Someone was like, oh it was last week. And I was like oh my gosh, oops.

Nadia Deas: 119 Euclid is a new space on Euclid avenue that was created for students to go to relax, study, and be surrounded by culture.

Nadia Deas: There are rooms dedicated to black entertainment media, new and old. And quotes on the wall used to encourage people that walk the hallways.

Nadia Deas: Diversity and Inclusion Officer Eboni Joy Britt says the house and the events they put on have a substantial impact on students.

Eboni Britt: When we first opened during the first week, I cannot tell you how many students came in here and cried, tears in their eyes.

Nadia Deas: Although this space was created for the comfort of black students on the campus of Syracuse University, that doesn’t mean that black people in the Syracuse community can’t enjoy the culture that is engulfed within these walls.

Nadia Deas: Now they are hosting homecoming events throughout the week. Gray believes that HBCuse will revive black culture on campus.

Gray: The initiatives of 119 Euclid is doing to bring those events back in the context of homecoming is so important because we’re remembering the legacy and then hopefully HBCuse is something that can happen all year.

Nadia Deas: Today is rep your org day, and the homecoming events will continue throughout the week. Nadia Deas, NCC News.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS)  It’s Homecoming Week at Syracuse University, a week that some students of color at Syracuse University haven’t always felt connected to.

Cameron Gray, a senior at SU, said she didn’t even realize when Homecoming was her freshman year.

“One day I asked my friends ‘when is Homecoming?’ and they told me it was last week,” she said. “I didn’t even know what was happening during the week or go to the game.”

This year, however, things will be different for people of color at Syracuse Univesity, looking to celebrate Homecoming with events during HBCuse.

HBCuse is a week of events put on by 119 Euclid, a new house on campus with the goal to create a space that students can call home. The building opened in September 2021 during Coming Back Together, an alumni event for people of color who are Syracuse University alumni. The building has a kitchen, living room with a flat-screen TV, and themed rooms that can be used for conference meetings and studying.

An executive director within the Office of Diversity and Inclusion on Syracuse University’s campus, Eboni Joy Britt, says the play on the name was their way of paying homage to homecomings at Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the nation.

” HBCU’s have such an unbelievable impact on Homecoming across this nation,” Britt said. “How could we do a homecoming event without giving credence to HBCU’s?”

Homecoming on campuses like Howard University, Hampton University, and Clark Atlanta University create experiences that black people can only get while attending an HBCU. But, 119 Euclid wants to create that kind of atmosphere for the students here at a predominately white institution.

As Gray states, a place to bring black culture back to campus.

“The initiative of 119 Euclid is doing to bring those events back in the context of homecoming, is so important because we’re remembering the legacy and then hopefully HBCuse is something that can happen all year,” she said.

Although Homecoming is helping to bring more people to 119 Euclid this week, the impact this house has on campus goes beyond Homecoming Week.

“When we first opened during the first week, I cannot tell you how many students came in here and cried, tears in their eyes,” Britt said. “I can’t tell you how many graduates and alumni were saying they wished there was something like this for them when they went to school here.”

Students like Gray and SU alumni hope that HBCuse can be something that takes place every year, thanks to 119 Euclid.

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