In order to raise awareness of Black History Month, the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity held their annual Black History Bingo event Thursday, Feb. 17 in the Heyward Community Center.

As students arrived, they each received a five-by-five bingo card that contained the name of a notable African-American historical figure.

During each game, whoever got five names in a row on their board, straight across or diagonally, won a prize courtesy of the fraternity. They switched things up toward the end by giving a prize to the first person to get the names correct on all four corners of the board.

Every year, fraternity members host this event with the goal of raising student awareness of the importance of Black History Month.

“I just think being knowledgeable and educated about any kind of history is important,” senior and Phi Beta Sigma member Uribe Norton said.

Junior Ja’Travian Brown was one of the fraternity members who helped put the event together. He and another fraternity member read off accomplishments of prominent African-Americans in history as students attempted to match the hints with the names on their board.

“We chose to do Black History Bingo because we wanted to make Black History fun, so we tried to incorporate it with a game,” Brown said.

Groups of friends and roommates joined together trying to win prizes and learning about Black History Month.

Sophomore Audriana Smith said that she enjoyed the event.

“My favorite part has to be learning important facts about famous African-Americans,” Smith said. “We all had fun but it was a learning experience.”

After all of the work they put in, Phi Beta Sigma members enjoyed getting to watch the event unfold.

“My favorite part [was] seeing the reaction of [the] people winning and getting the prizes and seeing that people actually know about the black history,” Norton said.

Brown said that he enjoyed a different aspect of the event.

“The best part of putting the event together was buying the prizes because we were trying to find stuff that wasn’t too serious and that people wouldn’t get too competitive about,” Brown said.

Brown also said that there were some hard elements in putting the entire game together.

“The hardest part was making the bingo cards because we had disagreements about what we should do for the cards, but we eventually got it right,” Brown said.

Brown shared why he thinks celebrating the month is essential to everyone, not just students.

“Black History Month is so important because at first we didn’t even have Black History Month; we just had a week,” Brown said. “It just seems like everyone should know their black history because it’s our roots and it’s where we came from.”

Smith expressed a similar idea of why the month is significant.

“Black history is important because I feel every African-American should know about our culture and the people who blazed the trails for us to do and be the people we are today,” Smith said.