History classes at Bob Jones are bringing the past to life by researching and dressing up as historical figures.

Why should we care? Some of the students dressed up as people that aren’t household names, but should be.

Sophomore Shelby West participated in this event as Elizabeth Blackwell. “I was the first woman to graduate from medical school. Back then, only men were doctors, and they didn’t really know how to treat women and children because they didn’t know that much about women and children, so she became a doctor so that more females would become doctors so they would actually know how to treat people.”

Students in a survey expressed that they would appreciate hearing more about people that affected things that matter to them. Isabella Moreno expressed, “I would like to have a conversation with Jacques Cousteau. He is not very historical, but he has made a big impact on the marine sciences.” She also said she would like to know more about artists because they had real impact, even though most people do not think so.

Mackenzie Edwards wanted to know more about Dorothy Dandridge. “I did a report on Dorothy earlier this year. She has beautiful character. I want to understand the struggle of film and production for women with dark skin.”

Bella Caballero wanted to have a conversation with Alan Turing. “He is the father of the modern computer, and made the machine that broke the nazi code during WWII. He was also gay and could have done so much more if he had not been forced to take medicine which affected him so badly that he killed himself.”

Students wanted to have a conversation with people that did important things for the world, just like Elizabeth Blackwell did. They wanted to talk to people who did important things for something that was important to them, or people who did something important for the whole world that were people that history doesn’t normally talk about.