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The Johnnies of Color Club
An Interview with Linda-Cecilia Bellamy and Stephanie Harris interview by Connor Shin '22
During Black History Month this year, the Johnnies of Color club hosted a barbeque and movie screening for the enjoyment and appreciation of the polity. Following a veritable banquet of smoked meats, potato salad, and hamburgers fresh from the Campbell kitchen (which was absolutely demolished in a Johnnie-fueled feeding frenzy), the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther was then shown to an enthusiastic audience. Shortly after the event, I was able to sit down with the two Archons behind the club, Linda-Cecilia Bellamy and Stephanie Harris, to get an in-depth perspective behind the planning of such a major event, as well as what this club aims to bring to the St. John’s community. CS: First thing’s first, what drew both of you to St. John’s in particular, and now that you’ve been here for a couple years, how do you view the cohesion of the polity as a whole, especially with the return to in-person classes following a fully-online year? LCB: What drew me to St. John’s was that the discussions we have here are really interesting to me. I think it’s normally more of a debate when you’re discussing matters of virtue, morality, and whatnot, but here, we’re all being rooted in a text, with the same knowledge, in a way. The consistency is the main thing; I can talk to someone who graduated St. John’s five years ago, and they would still remember what they did in their freshman year, and participate in the same discourse that I’m learning now! I also really enjoy the aspects of a small college. The community is really important here; everyone is together, going through the same things, like writing periods, for instance. I’m a sophomore now, so freshman year was pretty iffy in the sense of really feeling this community at first, but coming back to in-person classes made all of that struggling online worthwhile. Meeting people that I might not have gotten to know just in-class is very
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nice. SH: I always say that it feels like we’re still freshmen, because we really didn’t get that “freshman experience” that you’re supposed to get. I feel like I’m experiencing many things, like clubs and events, for the very first time this year. What drew me to St. John’s, though, was that I wanted to think differently. In high school, I thought that I wanted to go down a STEM route for college; I really wanted to major in Math and Computer Science. I remember having an interview with my admissions counselor for St. John’s, and she was telling me about the Program, and she told me about the way in which Johnnies think. I thought: That’s incredible, this sort of creative thinking that high school can’t teach me. So I took a shot for it, it worked, I’m here now, and I enjoy it so much! CS: This barbeque was my first experience with your club, and it was obviously a major commitment on your part, especially on that kind of scale. What went into deciding upon a barbeque-slash-movie screening to begin with, and what kind of challenges did you face while making sure that the event progressed smoothly once it
the Gadfly / λόγος / May 13, 2022
began? SH: I was just in a room with two of my club friends, and we were discussing how there wasn’t much planned at St. John’s for Black History Month, and how we wanted to do something. It kind of started out as a sort of joke: “Let’s just have a cookout, let’s do this!” But I didn’t think that we were actually going to go through with it. Then, I wondered: Why does this have to be just a joke? Let’s make this happen. So I talked to Linda, who I knew I could put a lot of trust into, to help me run this thing. We planned the event in just three days; we were so nervous, and things ended up going a bit weird along the way! But I think what made the event go well is that I was able to put my trust into who I ran it with. We also had a lot of friends backing us up along the way, a lot of club members… as a new club, getting those members to commit so easily was such a great thing. What started out as just a joking wish actually happened, so I’m very thankful for that. LCB: We were both so exhausted, because while we were planning the event, making phone calls and sending emails, we also realized that we needed to restart the club itself. This meant calculating a budget, creating a charter, and meeting with the Delegate Council, all within three days. But as Stephanie said, who you’re working with matters; I think she’s a great coArchon, and we both played to our strengths, which really helped keep the club’s energy up when dealing with issues like the nasty wind on the day of the event, or having to move burgers between buildings. We thought: It’s okay! Let’s get some music going, we can host the cookout indoors, and
