SU Commemorates Black History Month Throughout February

SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University commemorates Black History Month throughout February with events ranging from performances and lectures, to a film screening and special events.

This year’s theme is “African Americans and the Arts,” celebrating the many impacts Black Americans have had on visual arts, music, cultural movements and more.

Festivities begin with a kickoff 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 1, in the Jackson Family Auditorium of Holloway Hall. The event supports Black talent at SU and introduces attendees to other Black History Month programming at the University.

Additional events include:

• Saturday, February 3, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Fulton Hall, Black Box Theatre – “The Harriet Tubman Living History Experience”: Millicent Sparks performs this living history portrayal of Harriet Tubman, highlighting and heightening public awareness of slavery, abolitionism, the Underground Railroad, Civil War and other aspects of the life of one of the 19th century’s most celebrated figures. A workshop for participants to learn how to create, build upon and inhabit a believable cohesive and complete character concludes the event.
• Thursday, February 8, 6:30 p.m., Guerrieri Student Union, Wicomico Room – Keynote lecture by Dr. Melanee Harvey: An associate professor of art history in the Department of Art in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, Harvey delivers the keynote address, “African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Portraiture, 1785-1926: Black Formalist Aesthetics in Three Acts.” In addition to serving as coordinator for the art history area of study at Howard, she has been the university’s programming chair for the James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora since 2016.
• Friday, Feburary 9, 4:30-7:30 p.m., Commons - SU Soul Food Dinner: All-you-can-eat menu includes barbecued ribs, fried chicken, fried catfish, chitterlings, collard greens with ham hock, pigs' feet, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, cornbread, sweet potato biscuits and a variety of desserts. Cost is $16.50 (plus tax).
• Thursday, February 15, 6 p.m., Guerrieri Student Union, Wicomico Room – Summer of Soul documentary screening and discussion: In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary – part music film, part historical record – centered on an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion: the Harlem Cultural Festival, founded in 1967. Summer of Soul stands as a testament to the healing power of music during the era of the Black Arts Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. The feature includes concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.
• Monday, February 19, 6:30 p.m., Holloway Hall, Great Hall – “Revolutionary Politics: The Rhetoric of the Black Arts Movement”: Sarah RudeWalker, assistant professor of English at Spelman College, is a scholar of the rhetoric and poetics of African American social movements. Her first book, Revolutionary Poetics: The Rhetoric of the Black Arts Movement, is an account of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s that considers the strategic and passionate engagement of poets of the movement with rhetorical strategies and poetic forms particular to Black vernacular culture.
• Wednesday, February 28, 6-7:30 p.m., Ernie Bond Curriculum Resource Center, Conway Hall Room 226 - Sixth annual SU African American Poetry Read-In: Attendees are invited to read (or submit videos beforehand of) their own original poems or works of their favorite African American poets. Submit videos by emailing Stephen Ford, curriculum resource center and education librarian, at saford@salisbury.edu.
• Thursday, February 29, 4 p.m., Guerrieri Student Union, Wicomico Room – “Celebrating and Saving Black History in Schools and Communities” lecture and panel discussion: After a lecture on contemporary debates about Black history, a panel of scholars and community members discuss the historic and present importance of studying Black history and strategies for combating efforts to remove it from school curricula. Light refreshments will be provided.

Admission is free and the public is invited. Events in the series are sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Charles R. and Martha N. Fulton School of Liberal Arts, Samuel W. and Marilyn C. Seidel School of Education, Dotterer Foundation, English Department, History Department, Fulton Public Humanities Program, Multicultural Alliance, Pan-Hellenic Council, University of Maryland Eastern Shore School of Education, SU Libraries and One Year to Empowerment.

Those planning to park on campus must register in advance for a free parking pass.

Learn more about SU and opportunities to Make Tomorrow Yours at www.salisbury.edu.