Movie Night at the Southern Grind Cofé

The Southern Grind Cofé played host to Southern University’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, for a movie night on Thursday, February 21. The feature flick for the night was The Hate U Give, a movie about a young black girl who witnesses the death of her friend at the hands of a police officer, and, like any good movie experience, included free drinks and snacks.
The president of the NAACP, Kelsey Perine, decided to show The Hate U Give specifically because the movie highlights issues within the black community such as police brutality, double consciousness, and snitching, “[the movie is] about kids our age, issues that affect our community, and I just hoped that it would start a good discussion so that we could find some solutions.” Towards the larger goal of creating discourse, following the movie, there was a planned Q&A session.
Unfortunately, due to slight delays, the Q&A session was canceled. Nonetheless, the event was a success and according to a sophomore in attendance from New Orleans, Derrick Stewart, “It was a good experience, very professional and well organized.”
Several other attendees had similar things to say about it, with the general atmosphere of the movie being one of positivity and enjoyment. Kelsey also agrees with the success of movie night and is hoping to use the positivity and feedback from this event for events in the future, “I believe it was a great turn out and the NAACP is looking forward to put on more in the future.”
The host for the night, Southern Grind Cofé, is a relatively new business as it approaches its first full year of business. The shop itself sells freshly baked pastries, smoothies made from fresh fruit, and any type of coffee or espresso and markets itself accordingly as an organic coffee and smoothie shop.
With it being located less than five minutes away from Southern’s campus, located directly off of Scotland Avenue, the shop is within walking distance for on campus students without vehicles. All this makes the Southern Grind Cofé the perfect local to host events for any and all organizations that are struggling to get events approved on campus.
This is especially true since owner, Horatio Isadore, is a Southern graduate from the Agricultural Science Department. Isadore is also more than willing to host more events for organizations in the future as one of his primary motivators for opening up a coffee shop down the street, five minutes from Southern was to serve Southern students, “It’s y’alls, it’s open for the students. I never had nothing like this when I went to Southern.”
With the success of the NAACP’s movie night, more events from other organizations looking to host off-campus events will attempt to make the Southern Grind Cofé the location of said event. If this projected trend continues, then the Southern Grind Cofé will become the spot to be.