Celebrating Black History
A look at how selected colleges and universities celebrate Black History Month.
• Alamo Community College District,
San Antonio College, Texas
Lecture: Special guests: Brown sisters from Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Panel: “Brown v. Board of Education: Where Are We Today?”; “Is There Equality in Education?”
• Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.
African Drum Ensemble: Delightful hour of African American and African music and a discussion of the genre, lead by Dr. Mark Sunkett.
Lecture: “I Shook-up the World! Muhammad Ali and the Politics of Popular Representation,” presented by Matthew Whitaker.
Presentation: “Sustained by Clay”: Sculptor Helen Osman tells of her journey through brain injury and her survival.
• Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio
Soul Food Dinner: Recipes collected over the years from the Deep South to the far North combine a variety of spices from the Caribbean and Africa.
• Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green, Ohio
5th Annual Black Issues Conference:
“Definition Hip-Hop.”
Concert: “The Life and Music of William Grant Still: Dean of African American Composers.”
Lecture: “Racial Performativity and Anti-Racist Performance,” lecture by Professor Shannon Jackson, UC Berkeley.
Plays: “The Dutchman” and “Sally’s Rape” — two one-act plays exploring the African American experience.
• Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.
Lecture: Black History Month keynote speaker Dr. Cornel West.
2nd Annual Africana Festival: “Unity in the Spirit of Diversity,” includes music, dance, lectures, ethnic vendors multicultural, storytelling, student panel discussions, drumming workshops.
• Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Va.
Lecture: “Unsung Heroes of Massive Resistance,” presented by Dr. M. Boyd Jones and Mr. John Stokes; “Massive Resistance in Virginia,” presented by Barbara Ciara, WTKR News Channel 3 managing editor and anchor; “Using the Internet for Research Related to African American History and Culture,” presented by librarian Sherry Dupree; “Virginia and Massive Resistance,” presented by Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Professor Emeritus, Virginia Commonwealth University.
• Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio
Lecture: “Race Code War: The Power of Words, Images and Symbols on the Black Psyche,” by Khari Enaharo, guest lecturer and author.
Panel: “Ghetto Fabulous: 21st Century Hip Hop Foolery”; “The Absence of Black Pride: Will It Return?”
• Southeast Missouri State University,
Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Forum: “What Have You Done For Me Lately?: From Black Women to Black Men.”
Health and Wellness Day: Presentations and activities organized to make people aware of health issues the African American community faces.
Minority Career Exploration Dinner: Organized to enhance minorities’ understanding of the value of higher education in today’s competitive global marketplace.
Open Forum: “The Misrepresentations of Minorities in the Mass Media.”
• State University of New York
at Stony Brook
Forum: “A Missing Perspective: African Slaves & the Islamic Tradition in the New World.”
Play: “From Ethiopia to Freedom — a one-man show recounting a 500-mile journey by foot from Ethiopia to a refugee camp in Sudan and arrival in Israel.
• University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Film: “From Swastika to Jim Crow.”
Lecture: “African American Slave Women,” presented by Professor Stephanie Shaw.
• University of Southern Indiana,
Evansville, Ind.
Exhibit: “We Ask Only a Fair Trial,” includes research and images presented in the 1987 book, We Ask Only a Fair Trial by Dr. Darrel Bigham, which focuses on the development of the African American community in Evansville, primarily between 1812-1945.
• University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Community Service Project: “To whom much is given, much is required … we must give back.”
Film: “Dialogue on Diversity: Race — The Power of An Illusion”; “Spike Lee Film Festival — ‘Do the Right Thing’.”
Forum: “African and African American
Relations.”
Lecture: “The Media and Its Influence on Public Opinion,” presented by Michelle Hopkins.
• Virginia Tech, blacksburg, va.
Forum: “Segregation: Does the Struggle
Continue?”
Lecture: “Desegregation: An Analysis of Selected Litigation 1954-2002” featuring Lynn T. Brown; “Celebrating 50 years of Brown v. the Board of Education in Virginia,” featuring Dr. Belle S. Wheelan, Virginia’s Secretary of Education and former president of NOVA and Central Virginia Community College.
• Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
Lecture: Richard Stratton, co-writer/producer of SLAM and co-founder of High Times discusses the complexities of the drug war; Professor Robert Hill, “The Remains of the Name: The Origins of the Harlem Renaissance in the Discourse of Egyptology.”
• Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Dinner: Annual Black History Month Dinner with Poet, Nikki Giovanni.
Discussion: Dessert, Film and Discussion with filmmaker, St. Claire Bourne — “A Great and Mighty Walk: The Life of John Henrik Clarke.”
Lecture: “Fighting Hate Across Cultures and Generations,” discussed by a Rwandan woman and Jewish man.
Performance: Cultural Caravan, annual performance for elementary school children in New Haven.
Play: “For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.” n
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