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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; For Jimel Calliste, every day is about Black history, and that&rsquo;s even more true during February.
				Calliste, 29, who lives in Bloomsburg, was recently elected as the president of the Wilkes-Barre chapter of the NAACP after voting was held on Dec. 15. According to him, Black History Month is a time to reflect on the progress the Black community has made and also think about where progress can still be made.
				&ldquo;For me, Black history is every day,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is the month that it&rsquo;s celebrated; for me, it&rsquo;s a month to celebrate excellence. We have so much, even in the midst of the chaos, we&rsquo;ve made so much progress. We&rsquo;ve shown what can be done if we stick together.
				&ldquo;Now more than ever we need to look to the past,&rdquo; he went on.
				Calliste said that civil unrest over the past year illustrates why Black history needs to be understood. Calliste asks those who might not understand the importance of Black history to do some research.
				&ldquo;We&rsquo;re in the age of on-demand information,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Really look into the cases. Look into why people are being disproportionately killed. The fact will always remain the same. We&rsquo;re getting killed in the streets, in our homes.&rdquo;
				Calliste was referring largely to the deaths of Black people over the past year, such as Ahmaud Arbery &mdash; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-georgia.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">who was killed in Georgia last February</a> by two white men after they chased him down as he jogged through a neighborhood &mdash; Breonna Taylor &mdash;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54210448" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> killed while sleeping in a Louisville, Ky., home</a> during a no-knock raid performed by plain-clothes officers while attempting to find her ex-boyfriend, who other officers already had in custody &mdash; and, of course, George Floyd &mdash; whose <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">death</a> caused international protests after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
				Calliste asked people to try to rationalize why so many people were angry after watching these deaths continue to happen.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not even going to compare it to what took place at the Capitol, but there&rsquo;s a certain energy inside of people who feel as though they&rsquo;re unheard,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you saw reason at what happened at the Capitol and not peaceful protests, you&rsquo;re biased.&rdquo;
				While some of the Black Lives Matter protests did turn violent &mdash; some readers might remember watching <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/cnn-center-vandalized-protest-atlanta-destroyed/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CNN&rsquo;s Atlanta headquarters being damaged</a> during a violent scene last May &mdash; most reporting suggests that these moments of violence were the exception, not the rule.
				Time Magazine <a href="https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reports</a> that more than 93% of Black Lives Matter protests that occurred over the past year were peaceful without any moments of violence being reported, citing a report published by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
				Calliste said that he hopes people understand that deaths such as those of Floyd and Taylor, and the subsequent protests, could happen anywhere, including here.
				&ldquo;No city is exempt. This could&rsquo;ve been Wilkes-Barre,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wanna appreciate the fact that it wasn&rsquo;t, but no city is exempt.&rdquo;
				Calliste, a Brooklyn native, said he first got involved with the NAACP during his time studying at Bloomsburg University, and has spent the past five years rising through the ranks, learning what he can about organization, having past experience managing some statewide and national initiatives for the NAACP.
				Despite the fact that he&rsquo;s younger than most members of what he said is &ldquo;historically known as an older guard organization,&rdquo; he said what the NAACP is doing locally is built on that history.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m standing on the shoulders of giants,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way I can fail; my executive committee is 110% behind me. I feel fortunate and blessed.&rdquo;
				Calliste said that the Wilkes-Barre branch of the NAACP has some big plans for Black History Month, including formally launching social media accounts on Feb. 1.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an initial coming-out; we&rsquo;re being very intentional about that,&rdquo; he said.
				Calliste said that, throughout the month, the Wilkes-Barre NAACP will be highlighting its own history on those social media platforms and showing the history of Black people in Wilkes-Barre. Some webinars are also planned, with information to be released on their social media pages.
				Calliste said that he hopes that the people of the Wilkes-Barre area &mdash; both Black and otherwise &mdash; will appreciate the work being done by the NAACP to highlight that history.
				&ldquo;When readers read, they see it&rsquo;s all our history, it&rsquo;s all this nation&rsquo;s history,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more than optimistic that stories like this will show the community what we&rsquo;re doing for the community at large.&rdquo;

Wilkes-Barre NAACP President talks importance of Black History Month, upcoming plans