More than 10 awards were given out at the second annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Image Awards ceremony Saturday evening.

The award ceremony was a way to honor and acknowledge the minority students, faculty and staff members who have done outstanding or excellent work on Eastern’s campus in various fields and endeavors.

Shamerea Richards, a senior communication studies major, said she was surprised when her name was read over the microphone for winning the Spingarn Medal, which was an award honoring a Registered Student Organization that has persevered through challenges in order to accomplish its purpose.

“I’m very honored and I’m very humbled to receive an award like this; I would never have expected this when I started PAECE—it feels good. God works in mysterious ways,” Richards said.

Richards, who is the president of Performing Arts for Effective Civic Education, won the award for starting the organization this past semester. Its purpose is to help community members of Charleston be active citizens toward the achievement of social justice.

Richards also performed a spoken word poetry piece titled “My Melanin,” which highlighted themes of African-Americans hating their black skin and wanting to bleach it lighter by assimilating into the Caucasian culture.

“We are the foundation of this nation,” Richards said in the poem.

A miming dance routine was performed during the ceremony as well as a wind instrument performance.

Corinthian Bethel, the president of the Eastern NAACP chapter, said their chapter is the newest in the state, which just became re-active this past semester. The chapter had been inactive since 2010 prior to Bethel’s taking over the organization.

Bethel, who also took home two awards: Black Excellence and Perfect Image, said now that the chapter is active they can participate in national conferences with other NAACP chapters.

Nationally, other NAACP award ceremonies happened the same night as Eastern’s chapter.

Many other awards were given out that night as well, including:

the Sojourner Truth Award to Yolanda Williams, Maggie Burkhead and Linda Scholz;

the Thurgood Marshall Award to Omar Solomon;

the Booker T. Washington Award to James B. Griffin;

the Martin Luther King Jr. Award to Reginald Thedford;

the Mordecai Underclassman Award to Ariel O’neal;

the Malcolm X Award to Jarvis Burks and Alexis Lambert;

the Prince Hall Male Greek Award to Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity;

the Prince Hall Female Greek Award to Delta Sigma Theta sorority;

the Rosa Parks Award to the Black Student Union;

the Marcus Garvey Award to the African Student Association;

the Elijah McCoy Award to the University Board; and

the Pearled Perfection Award to Bria Caldwell.

 Roberto Hodge and T’Nerra Butler can be reached at 581-2812 or rlhodge@eiu.edu.