Empowering Scholars: Student Essay Explores Black Masculinity

 

At its core, the essay form provides a space in which writers can explore a topic and, based on what they find in their linguistic adventures, mount an argument. In other words, writing an essay is central to academic and intellectual growth. Senior English major Emmanuel Morrison recently did just that, as last month he participated in the Terry Kershaw Student Essay Contest, a national competition held annually by the National Council of Black Studies (NCBS). 

“[Morrison’s] involvement showcased his intellectual prowess,” said Fard Rollock, Program Coordinator of L.E.G.A.C.I. Student Success Programs, “and it also highlighted the importance of empowering young scholars to contribute meaningfully to the field.” Morrison’s essay, “Avatar of Anguish: Oppositional Gaze in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977)," centered around analysis of the 1977 Black student film “Killer of Sheep.” The essay touches on aspects of Black masculinity in the modern world, Black male depression, and how both exist in the film and the lived reality. 

Morrison also attended the 2024 NCBS conference last month in San Jose, California. While there, he engaged with other students, activists, and scholars. The L.E.G.A.C.I. program covered all his expenses, including his flight, hotel, and conference registration costs—such support, along with such things as cohort-based instruction, book scholarships, and free tutoring, are all part of the program’s suite of services meant to assist Gator undergraduates. 

In the film critic Lisa Schwartzbaum’s review of “Killer of Sheep,” she wrote that the movie is “a miracle of a buried classic granted the opposite of a killing—here's to life.” Indeed, and here’s to Morrison’s essayistic achievement.