Students competed in an NAACP-themed game of Jeopardy at the Coleman Auditorium Monday night.

The categories included quotes from famous equal rights activists, movies and television shows featuring well-known African-American actors and prominent civil rights events and figures.

Students who attended the event were divided into two teams and competed against each other.

They fired back and forth, answering questions about African-American history topics ranging from inquiries about famous activists like Malcolm X and Mahatma Gandhi to the television show “The Boondock Saints” and the rapper Drake.

The “Final Jeopardy” question was about Ida B. Wells and her involvement in the founding of the NAACP.

In the end, the winners were awarded African-American Heritage Month-themed pin-back buttons.

Kortney Lucius, a junior biology pre-medicine major, said the game was made by Eastern’s NAACP board members.

“Each member (of the board) came up with a selected topic and the secretary composed them,” Lucius said.

The board’s secretary, Tykyla Crockett, a sophomore early childhood education major, was the one who put the whole game together.

This game was one of several activities to be hosted by the NAACP for African-American Heritage Month that will be open for all students to attend.

Lucius said that any students interested could attend the NAACP’s showing of “The Hate U Give” on Wednesday, which is a movie that highlights police harassment of African-Americans.

“’The Hate U Give’ is a movie that reflects the racial profiling from police officers, and we … want to bring that to light on campus at Eastern,” he said.

He also said that he had received reports of police harassing black students on campus recently via email.

“We felt before the month of February ended that we should address these issues; that’s why we had this event,” he said.

Lucius and Crockett said it is important to attend events like this to widen a person’s perspective on diversity and the struggles of minority groups.

“Attending multicultural events in general—whether it’s African-American, Hispanic, Caucasian—give you a sense of where everybody is in life and where they want to go,” Lucius said. “And they also give you a sense of inclusion of how you can better them and how they can better you.”

“(Eastern is) known as a diverse community,” Crockett said, expanding on the importance of attending events hosted by equal rights groups. “I think that you get a different (idea) of being diverse … I think (attending these events) gives people a look on different cultures.”

Some other events in relation to African-American Heritage Month this February were the Miss Black EIU pageant last weekend and “The Evolution of the Black Woman” on Feb. 18.

Upcoming events for African-American Heritage Month include “Black Excellence—The Importance of Graduate School,” hosted by the Black Graduate School Association, and the Interdisciplinary Center for Global Diversity Symposium; both will take place Tuesday and conclude the events for African-American Heritage Month.

Austen Brown can be reached at 581-2812 or at albrown6@eiu.edu.