Johnnies of Color Club

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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 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 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 keep the party’s energy going.

With a cookout, people should feel like they’re part of one big family; listening to music, eating food, talking, and so on. In that sense, we didn’t want the event to feel manufactured, and I think we succeeded in making the atmosphere naturally inviting to everyone. With the film, we wanted something that had an emphasis on people of color, but also something that was fun and light-hearted; we didn’t want to intellectualize it as much, and we wanted it to appeal to a wide audience, so that influenced our decision to choose Black Panther in particular.

CS: The barbeque was undoubtedly a hit, based off of the piles of empty trays that I saw scattered all over the place after less than an hour (Luckily, I was able to pick up a plate before it was all gone). Do you think that the success of your event will translate to more concrete results for your club, like an influx of new members, for instance?

LCB: I definitely think so. We had a little sign-up board at the event, and we had some new members already join; people I wouldn’t have expected to want to participate in our club, like seniors who I’ve never interacted with before. It’s really cool, because it’s not just our existing friends, or people who we know personally, but people who we don’t yet know on campus, from other years and whatnot. I think the barbeque really helped initiate that new interest in our club.

SH: More than anything, I think the cookout brought the school together more, which is what I really wanted from it. If we’re able to do more things like this, it’ll mean a steady increase of members, even if future events won’t be exactly as big as this one was.

LCB: One of my friends told me, “This was great! I saw so many people here who I’ve never seen on campus before!” That’s a really beautiful thing to me, that we were all having a good time together, just like what Stephanie said.

CS: Did the event pretty much meet your expectations, or did anything happen that threw you for a loop?

SH: I’ll put it this way: we bought enough food for forty people, and we thought we’d have leftovers afterwards! But besides that, we wanted to grill some more food too, but the grill was literally falling over at the last minute. We ended up having to cook everything down in the Campbell Hall kitchen, and we had to run back and forth to the Great Hall to keep the trays full for as long as possible. The turnout was incredible, and not at all what we expected, especially with the last-minute changes we had to work with for the real deal. Even with a slight delay, the cookout was way better than I could’ve hoped for.

LCB: I couldn’t have imagined the event going as well as it did! We expected to show the movie outside with heaters and blankets for the audience, but even though we had to change some of our plans like this at the last minute, it was still a wild party!

CS: Based off of what I could find online, the Johnnies of Color club existed in one form or another since at least 2020. And Linda mentioned how prior to the event, you two had to pretty much restart the club from square one. Can you tell me a bit about the history of the club, and how it fared through the Zoom classes of last year and the tentative normality of this year?

SH: Johnnies of Color was actually the only club I reached out to during my Zoom classes. It started out as a student-run deal; they didn’t even have a charter at the time, and we had to make one ourselves. It was a crosscampus club, so I was in contact with the Johnnies of Color Archon at Santa Fe (Misgana Sharew). Funnily enough, I didn’t know that I became one of the new Archons of the club in Annapolis until we looked online; I had no idea that [Misgana] did that!

The majority of the club was based in the Santa Fe campus. I think that when I first joined, there was only one other Annapolis-based member. For some reason, I thought that the club simply ended, because I hadn’t heard from the Archon for a while after I joined. So when I got on campus this year, I wanted to start this up again, because of how important it was for me and other students of color. The cross-campus aspect of this club was very complicated, and kind of forced us to use Zoom to keep in touch with our Santa Fe classmates. I knew I didn’t want to stay purely on Zoom, so when we started up the club again, we wanted it to be focussed on our own campus this time. We’re still able to reach out to the Santa Fe campus if we want to host events like panels, for instance.

CS: According to Misgana, during her time as the Johnnies of Color Archon, the aim of your club was to “bridge the gap that exists between the two campuses” of St. John’s, and to “provide a safe space for students of color to connect and join to build a community”. Is this still the vision of the club under your supervision, or are there any new goals that you have been working towards instead?

LCB: We’re not emphasizing the cross-campus aspect as much nowadays, and we welcome anyone who is interested, regardless of their race. The focus of the club is still people of color connecting with each other, and things that weigh on our hearts and minds is the main topic of many of our discussions; but at the same time, the club is open to the entire polity, and anyone who would like to join. While we may be looking at some things differently, I think the main soul of what Misgana said is still here.

CS: As we reach the end of Black History Month this year, racial injustice, especially in the United States, continues to be an intensely-divisive topic. Do you see these tensions manifesting around Annapolis, or even within the so-called “St. John’s Bubble” itself?

SH: I’m from Oregon, and the racism that I see is somewhat different here in Maryland. In my home state, racism takes a more subtle form, that doesn’t really show up unless a person really wants you to know this side of them. Here, though, people seem to be actively trying to understand this intersectionality of races that they just can’t figure out. As a student at St. John’s, I hear jokes that this school lacks diversity, but it’s not even a joke at this point; everyone knows that. I think that’s why I gravitate so much towards other students of color.

If I’m honest, I feel like there’s not just a problem with race here, but a problem with misogyny too, but that’s a whole other story. As a black woman, these add up to make being assertive in class harder. I often feel ignored in class, not just because I’m black, but also because I’m female. It makes addressing the class feel very different, which I think is the biggest thing I notice as a Johnnie. We’re supposed to be vocal about how we feel about the texts we’re reading, but if we have these preconceived notions in our head that we won’t be listened to because of who we are, it makes being a student at St. John’s that much more difficult.

LCB: I completely agree. Socially, the racism we experience here is quieter, or perhaps just borne out of ignorance or a lack of experience in interacting with people of color. In class though, I feel very isolated, but I’m grateful that this year, my classes have been surprisingly diverse. I appreciate my classmates a lot, because they are able to bring their own perspectives on how they interpret the Program’s readings. However, I still feel a lot of tension when trying to share my own views as a black woman. When I’m the only black person in my class, for instance, I’m afraid that my perspective won’t be understood completely by my peers, if I don’t express myself absolutely perfectly.

I remember being told some advice along the lines of, “Drop your viewpoint into the conversation, and trust your peers to carry your thoughts along.” But I often don’t feel confident that my perspective can be a valuable contribution to the class, because of how differently I might view things compared to my classmates.

With Annapolis as a whole, racism feels a lot more inyour-face. I’m from Washington, D.C., so it feels jarring, even though these two cities aren’t that far away from each other. It adds to my feeling of isolation, in a way. That’s why this club is so important to me, because it’s nice to just meet people who can feel and understand your struggles in the same way, even on a campus as small as this one.

CS: That’s actually a perfect segue into my next question: what issues would you like the Johnnies of Color club to focus on and reach out to our community about?

SH: As far as issues go, I don’t want our problems to be the only thing we ever talk about; I want our club to be a place of togetherness, in which learning to understand each other’s struggles simply comes naturally as a result of such a welcoming space. I want to focus on the joy that we have together.

LCB: When we’re together, it’s absolutely important to focus on the happiness we can share, because I often feel like there is so much focus on a lack of something or a negative aspect of our lives, that takes up both time and emotional energy from us. Dealing with issues here is very nuanced; how do you balance necessary changes to a school’s culture with preserving the positive aspects that made us choose it to begin with? I would like to address classroom dynamics, but it’s very hard to talk about when it’s so connected with conversations between different people; you’re almost asking people to change who they are, because their own thoughts are what drives their discussions in the first place.

Hiring more people of color as tutors is a more straightforward goal that we’d like to promote, but I think our school is already aware of this and is trying to reach out more, which I’m very grateful for. Ultimately, one of our bigger goals is to promote more diversity in our student body overall, but our club is not exactly meant to tackle any particular issues head-on. Instead, as students of color, what this club does for us is allow us to build a sense of belonging here, as well as appreciate what St. John’s has to offer; it’s still a great school, and I love it here, and I want to just keep spreading this positive feeling around our community.

CS: What does the rest of the year hold for your club? Does the success of your cookout mean we can expect more polity-wide events in the future?

LCB: For the rest of this semester, we might stick to smaller gatherings, but we’ll definitely have some major events planned for next fall or spring. It was so fun to host this cookout, and putting all of our time and energy into making it work made the whole experience feel authentic to me.

CS: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to the polity before we wrap up here?

LCB: Yeah, be sure to look out for an email regarding meeting times for next year!