Black STU students to honour ancestors at graduation

Black students at St. Thomas University will now be able to wear their heritage proudly at convocation ceremonies.

The Black Students' Association, lead by fourth-year student Kryssonia Wedderburn, introduced the idea of wearing a kente stole to graduation. 

The stole is made from multicolour cloth and worn around the shoulders.

Wedderburn, who's from Jamaica, said it has deep significance for students who live away from their home countries.

"It's kind of an emblem for students with African descent to show their solidarity, their appreciation of their culture, also a representation of the struggles that they face to get to where they are because Black people are marginalized," she told Shift New Brunswick.

It is a representation of everything that everyone has done for me to get here.- Kryssonia Wedderburn, St. Thomas student.

Wedderburn said the stoles were first used in the 1950s as part of the pan-African movement.

They're made for people of African descent who live outside the African continent, since it represents ancestors thriving despite their displacement from their home, she said.

The word kente refers to a type of fabric that originated in Ghana. Each of the coloured stripes on the garment represent a different meaning, said Wedderburn. Red is passion, gold is status and serenity, black is spiritual awareness, blue is harmony and a pure spirit, green is renewal, and yellow is fertility.  

"Over the years it has become a kind of rite of passage for the stoles to be used during graduation events, especially in the African diaspora," she said.

She said she's wanted to make this happen since her first year at St. Thomas, and worked with the association and the university to make her dream a reality.

St. Thomas University President and Vice-Chancellor Dawn Russell was quoted in a news release as saying she was pleased to help the Black Students' Association achieve their goal.

"Graduation is a personal achievement for each student, and wearing a Kente Stole with a STU hood and gown will bring more meaning to our Black students," she said.

The university convocation is tentatively scheduled for July 8. Wedderburn will be graduating and she will be wearing her stole.

"For me, it is a representation of everything that everyone has done for me to get here, so my parents, my ancestors, each and every professor and friend that has poured into me," she said.

Wedderburn used the stole when she took her graduation photos and "shed a couple of tears."

She said if the graduation is held in person, she's hoping to have a separate stole ceremony where students walk across the stage, put the stole on and listen to a guest speaker talk about Black history. But that ceremony is a work in progress.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.