KENT, Ohio — Many people credit Kent State University for starting Black History Month. In 1969, Black United Students at Kent State talked about extending what was a weeklong celebration to a month. 

In 1970, Kent State hosted its first Black History Month six years before then-President Gerald Ford declared February as the same. 

University officials explained they have made it a point to celebrate the month meaningfully ever since. 

This year, Kent State kicked off this month of learning by hosting Bernice King in a “fireside chat.”

King was 5 years old when her father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated. 

She keeps his legacy alive as the CEO of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. 

“It was fueled from my father in the movement,” King said during the talk. “You know, nonviolence really was a way to channel the anger and the hurt and the pain to something that could bring about a constructive outcome.”

The audience was filled with people of all ages, to hear King speak.

Kristal J. Moseley, a senior at KSU and the vice president of Black United Students, was in attendance.

“I think it was really important to be able to listen to someone who is not only the child of such an important historical figure of the civil rights movement, but has developed a legacy themselves with their own work in the civil rights movement and their improvement in the Black community,” Moseley said. 

King spoke candidly about the issues that Black communities face in today’s world. 

“It’s hell being Black in America,” King said. “You know I don’t have a sign that says, ‘hey, I’m the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.,’ and my face is not recognizable everywhere.” 

King encouraged the audience to study her father’s message of non-violence and apply it in their everyday life. 

 “You have to persist because we can’t continue to allow the things that are happening in our nation to happen, because we are declining in some ways,” she said. “You deserve to live in a different kind of world.”