By Samuel Antezana

For The Diamondback

Senior Chijiaku “C.J.” Maduka identifies as Nigerian, but he said he has experienced confusion throughout his life about what it means to be black, and has questioned his identity.

“I had two friends who I had been friends with for three years. They all knew me as C.J., because sometimes people can’t pronounce my real name,” said Maduka, a psychology major and outreach chairman of Community Roots, a student activist group at the University of Maryland. “One of the guys asked, ‘What’s your real name?’ When I told them my name, both of them said, ‘Wait, you’re not black?’ They saw me in a different light.”

Maduka and about 250 other attendees engaged in conversation as part of the 2016 Pan-African Conference, hosted by the W.E.B. Du Bois Honor Society in Stamp Student Union on Sunday afternoon.

With the theme of “Celebrating Black Brilliance,” the event served as an outlet for the community to discuss 21st-century issues black people face, as well as to provide a place for people to come together and embrace their identities.

“A lot of times when we unite as a people and coalesce, it’s around tragedy or mourning and rage,” said Naya Frazier, a senior international business and marketing major and president of the W.E.B Du Bois Honor Society at this university. “We acknowledge that all of these things are happening around the globe, but what we want to do is coalesce around who we are in spite of the struggle.”

People at the event used the hashtag #BlackBrilliance to market the event, but it also served as a call to action, Frazier said. It unified everyone in a way, yet meant different things to different people.

During the event, which included performances and a meal, there were breakout sessions that allowed the group to break up and discuss different topics on a smaller scale. One of the sessions, the “What is Black?” workshop hosted by Community Roots and this university’s NAACP chapter, explored the expansive definition of being black and what it means to others.

“We are a group of people from a bunch of different cultures and countries who are grouped into this one box, we face similar problems and obstacles in America,” said Ceaira Thomas, a senior economics major and president of this university’s NAACP chapter. “We cannot be defined. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to being bound to this one category. We need to recognize that we have these same struggles and we need to be allies for each other, but we are not this one homogeneous group of people.”

The other three sessions, “#BlackArtMatters,” “Talented Tenth To Talented Terps: The Evolution of Black Excellence” and “My Light Comes From …” explored various topics related to the theme of the conference, including artwork, ancestry and the studies of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Toward the end of the conference, some attendees were able to take part in the community town hall portion, to unpack their experience and voice their feelings on what the event had done for them. The attendees could also discuss how they plan to continue to spread the conversation by educating their friends and family members.

“This event was about unifying and celebrating, but also about being empowered enough to organize and effect change,” Frazier said.