African American celebration month has come to a close at Oakland University. 

In honor of the month, Alpha Omega Co-ed Christian Fraternity held their event “Free at Last?” the evening of Feb. 18 to bring awareness to spiritual oppression and freedom from bondage.

With Christianity as their backbone, they wanted to put their main focus on students who may struggle with personal bondage and spiritual oppression.

As you walk through the campus, you continuously notice lots of strong holds where students are in bondage said Ryan Fluker, sophomore at OU and president of the fraternity.

Inspired by the bible, Ryan summarized his interpretation of John: 8, saying “If you commit sin then you are a slave of sin, but if the son has come to set you free then you will be free.”

Later on he said “Although we aren’t physically bound in chains we are still in a spiritual oppression or bondage.”

Their intent was to help lead students to be set free of this spiritual bondage and to bring light to freedom through Jesus Christ.

In Ryan’s eyes, this is a universal problem that people deal with, not just the African American community.

The several performances they had including rap and spoken word were all centered on how sin contributes to this bondage or “spiritual addiction” said Ryan.

From watching these performances, Ryan said that they wanted people to leave with an understanding that they don’t have to continue to struggle with the sin, spiritual bondage and oppression.

Apart from the main focus of bondage being sin, the organization brought attention to another type of bondage that has become a major problem in this era.

Oakland University’s own Freedom Fighters came to bring awareness and knowledge of the human trafficking going on throughout the world.

With the spin on this type of bondage was very contrasting to being a slave, something more physical than spiritual, they wanted to inform the students that freedom from it was just the same.

Their way to be set free from this oppression and bondage?

Through Jesus Christ.

After the several performances, they closed their event leaving a familiar message with their audience.

“Jesus was the way, the truth and the life,” a verse from the bible John 14:6.

Knowing this, meant knowing how to overcome spiritual oppression and bondage in itself.

‘I wanted to change hearts,” Ryan said, “for people to not only to have an awareness of who Jesus Christ is but to also be able to experience that freedom from themselves.” He wanted them to be able to live it.