Several student groups organized Black History Month events across campus in February, even as some organizers said they struggled to secure funding after the College closed its diversity offices last summer.

The programming comes as undergraduates navigate an institutional landscape reshaped by Harvard’s decision to shutter the Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, the Women’s Center, and the Office for BGLTQ Student Life, consolidating their staff into a new Office of Culture and Community.

Marissa L. Strong ’27, president of the Harvard College Generational African American Student Association, said the group lost access to at least three grants it had relied on in previous years.

“At least three grants were shut down that we had gotten significant funding from last year, and that we can’t anymore, but we’ve been able to pivot,” she said.

Strong said the funding cuts included grants from the Harvard Foundation’s Student Advisory Committee and the COOP Student Group Public Service Grant, both of which GAASA had relied on in previous years.

College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a Tuesday statement that funding previously distributed through the Foundation’s SAC — drawn from the Student Activity Fee — has since been redistributed across the Harvard Undergraduate Association, House Committees, and the College Events Board.

He added that new grant opportunities through the Office of Culture and Community have increased the total funding available to student organizations.

“The redistribution of former SAC funds through HUA, the increased funding available through the Harvard Foundation, and the creation of new C&C grant opportunities mean that there is now more total funding available to registered student organizations than there was previously,” he wrote.

To make up the difference, Strong said she has resorted to cold-emailing companies whose advertisements she sees around Cambridge.

“I’ll see a billboard or something, or a poster somewhere of a company, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, let me email them,’ and then I get in contact with them, and then they’ll send us money,” Strong said.

Strong helped organize Black Joy Week, a new GAASA series running from Feb. 23 to Feb. 27 featuring professional development workshops, a hair care project, a Greek life showcase, and a career panel.

Earlier in the month, GAASA collaborated with the Kuumba Singers and the Black Arts Collective to host Harmony Hour, a cultural showcase with group singing, arts and crafts, and soul food.

Dexter Griffin ’27, director of publicity for the Kuumba Singers, said hosting Harmony Hour was a way to make space for African gospel and spiritual traditions that “don’t get space made for, unless we make it.”

Asked about the impact of the institutional changes, Griffin said the group remained focused on its mission.

“Our primary goal is just to celebrate our culture and keep doing that, I think, regardless of what’s happening at the institutional level,” he said.

Several Houses also hosted Black History Month programming. On Feb. 16, roughly 30 students in Quincy House watched a screening of “Malcolm X: The Making of Black and Muslim America,” organized by Quincy tutors Saaleh Baseer and Aundrey Page.

Baseer said Malcolm X’s ties to Harvard helped motivate the event. Malcolm X delivered at least three speeches at the University — including in Sanders Theatre and Leverett House — and read the “Harvard Classics,” a compilation edited by former Harvard President Charles W. Eliot, while imprisoned.

After the screening, Muslim students read the first chapter of the Quran together to honor X, who was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965.

“That was really tough, because we just saw him being assassinated,” Baseer said. “That was mournful.”

The Harvard Foundation held its third annual “Fireside Stories: Folktale Stories from the Black Diaspora” on Feb. 20, where six student performers shared folktales, spoken word pieces, and songs from across the Black diaspora. Attendees ate food from local restaurants including Red Red Kitchen and Flames.

NanaYaa P. Dwomoh ’27, who launched the event as a freshman, said she expanded the program this year to include poetry and music alongside folktales, noting they “are all forms and ways of storytelling.”

Among the performers was Malikiya A. Hinds, the first student with an upper-limb difference to attend Harvard Medical School. Hinds shared a Trinidadian folktale and reflected on being told medicine was out of reach.

“What happened when I decided to take control of my own narrative and make my own story? I thought that that was a very transformational point in my life,” Hinds said.

During the event, Anicia Miller ’27 performed an original spoken-word piece, “Still We Climb,” inspired by Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” echoing the resilience organizers described throughout the month.

“You wanted to see us give up, comprising our histories into March and February, crumble and fall fresh out of luck, born into this world to feel secondary,” Miller recited. “You may beat us with your negligence. You may silence us like a mime. You may abuse us with your prejudice, but still, like superheroes, we will climb.”

—Staff writer Kaylee Razo can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Mark C.Z. Snekvik can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at marksnek.62. Follow him on X at @markcsnekvik.