March 10, 2021

Recapping Black History Month with our Head of Diversity, Fran Phillips

Blog, Internal Stories, Jam City

I wanted to take the time to recap this year’s Black History Month celebrations at Jam City. It was great to see employees’ enthusiastic support and participation in several company activities throughout February.

Employees changed their Slack profiles to showcase Black leaders that have made an impact in the world. This was a great way to learn about some individuals I did not know about like Jerry Lawson, who pioneered home video gaming in the 1970s. I personally changed my profile picture to my favorite pic of Maya Angelou and added her quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

On social media, we shared templates for employees to update their LinkedIn profiles and virtual meeting backgrounds. All month long, our teams showcased their pride, support, and encouraged awareness. Our company also updated their logo to reflect the colors of the Pan-African flagWe learned from one another by connecting during lunch every Friday. Some of our BE officers (Black Employee Group) hosted candid conversations on different topics, and I must say I learned a lot from each of these sessions and I was so proud to see how other Jam Citizens joined the conversation and shared opinions and support through respectful and productive dialogue. Thank you, Izzy, Chris and Michael for your preparation to ensure we all learned something new.

One of my favorite events was enjoying a Netflix Teleparty with other Jam Citizens while we all watched Uppity. It was a neat way for all of us to connect while being apart. Thank you Nevin for hosting us with such grace during the pre-event, and Chanelle, you are a true Teleparty expert!

We closed off the month with our first speaker of the year. Our Jam Talks guest speaker was Lual Mayen, founder of Junub Games. He shared his journey that took him from living in a refugee camp in Uganda for over 20 years, to developing a game called Salaam and starting his own foundation. Our CEO, Chris DeWolfe, hosted a deeper conversation to learn what drives Lual day-to-day. One of my favorite quotes from Lual was, “Talent is distributed, but opportunity is not.” 

I would like to finish this recap by thanking the members of BE – Black Employee Group at Jam City that helped out during the month; Cicie, Chanelle, Izzy, Joram, Natasha, Michael, and Chris. I look forward to continuing our journey of learning together in 2021.