Jamaal Brown, a historian and founder of the Black365 organization, was a guest speaker at Moorpark College on Wednesday, Feb. 14. Brown discussed his childhood, his role as a public speaker and gave a dynamic presentation on Black history.

Brown started the presentation by recalling a childhood memory in which he, and other Black students, experienced racial inequality. As a young student, when Brown was told to come up with a list of five future careers to present in front of his class, he could only come up with four life paths.

“It was my time to go next… I’m going to be an athlete, a drug dealer, gang member or entertainer,” Brown said in front of his entire fourth-grade class. “In my heart of hearts, I thought my highest aspiration was to be one of those four things. Couldn’t even come up with a fifth one, it was those four things.”

Brown decided to give being an athlete a try. He transferred schools, joined the basketball team and even became captain of his team.

Brown was later told he had a heart condition that would end his basketball career. After this, he went on to become president of the Black Student Union in his high school and eventually began his career as a historian.

During his presentation, Brown was able to captivate the attention of everyone in the audience through an educational game he hosted on Kahoot. This bowl was created as a fun way for the audience to interact with each other, while also learning about Black history.

What had started as a relaxed game for the audience to learn about Black history, quickly delved into excited competitiveness amongst attendees, including professors against students and vice versa.

This game was split into different categories including “Who am I?” where the audience had to guess the name of the celebrity based on pictures, to “Name the Inventor” where audience members learned which Black inventor created which invention.

Through this game, Moorpark College student Nico Bayot learned about different important figures within the sports world.

“I learned a few things from the Kahoot, such as the name of the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl was Doug Williams, Wilma Rudolph overcame infantile paralysis caused by polio and participated in the Olympics at 16… and Althea Gibson was the first African American to win a Grand Slam tennis event,” Bayot said.

Moorpark College professor Tamarra Coleman, who is part of the planning committee for the school’s Black History Month events, also attended this presentation. Coleman felt that it was very powerful for Brown to tell his story of what he thought he could be as a child to now having a Ph.D.

“I’ve been part of the group that, you know, plans things and organizes things, but other than that, I just think it’s very very important to me to support these things,” Coleman said.

Coleman mentioned that one of the highlights of this presentation was seeing her students participate in Brown’s interactive games.

“It was really fun to watch my students get so engaged,” Coleman shared.

Although some students attended the presentation for extra credit, they left with new bits of knowledge on Black history.

Jamaal Brown is also the founder of Black365, an organization of teachers, scholars, authors and educators focused on spreading knowledge of Black history to students. Brown created the Black365 Calendar which has an event or fact of Black history for every single day of the year.

“I love the idea of having that calendar… wasn’t that cool? And that’s just what happens in our country, we tend to not recognize all of those contributions,” Coleman said in regards to the Black365 Calendar created by Brown.

After attendees participated in the quiz bowl, Brown left students with his organization’s mission and a statement regarding his drive to create the Black365 Calendar.

“What we call Black history truly is world history,” Brown declared.

For more information on Jamaal Brown and Black365, click here.