As Black History Month approaches in February, the Black Studies program is taking initiative to both spark awareness on campus and possibly interest more students in minoring in the field beginning with the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.
Events taking place on campus include an interfaith prayer service; a multicultural festival; the LaFarge Convocation keynote address by Dr. Diana Hayes of Georgetown University; the Dr. King Vision Awards dinner; and a youth workshop for selected Bridgeport middle school students.
Renee White, co-director of the Black Studies program, said these events complement classroom lectures and make them more applicable.
The Black Studies program has received positive feedback and a large student turnout is expected in this semester’s classes.
However, professors are still lookin to increase student involvement.
“The Black Studies program is a vehicle to explore the outlying community we’re in,” she said.
Yohuru Williams, the program’s other co-director, agreed that events this week and during Black History Month will alert students to the central issues of the Black Studies program.
“It will address Martin Luther King’s vision for social justice,” said Williams.
In February, the Black Studies program will be collaborating with the Face AIDS project to host a regional conference. This will be conducted on Feb. 23 and 24 and will acknowledge the issue of AIDS in the African diaspora.
“We are hoping that this will become one of the signature themes that our black studies program addresses,” said White.
Archaeologist Warren Perry of Central Connecticut State University was invited to present artifacts and information uncovered throughout his own research as part of the Visiting Scholar Series. In this series, a recently established scholar is invited to come to the campus and give a public lecture or class.
Perry will address the history of slavery in New York and the Northeast, as well as the spirituality and tradition of African Americans – a fusion of both African American and Western culture.
The University has also invited Kim Gilmore from New York University to premiere a documentary entitled “The Africa Fleet” which tackles the issue of slavery.
An interest in African-American culture and history is becoming more fervent among students, according to Larri Mazon, director of the Center for Multicultural Relations. He hopes that more student-driven activities will arise as a result of the events hosted by the black studies program and the Center for Multicultural Relations.
“One of my dreams is that students will develop a coalition in which they will collectively come up with a series of events for each month and for each culture,” said Mazon.
The Center for Multicultural Relations has separated into two branches that will each address the issue of diversity: the Office of Institutional Diversity Initiatives, which will focus on the campus climate to make it more welcoming to multicultural students and the Office of Diversity Programs, which will offer student support services to encourage student involvement on campus.
“The reason for this separation is to promote multicultural education and build community diversity in terms of ideas and perspective,” said Mazon. “Diversity makes it thrive.”
Students are enthusiastic about the efforts made by White, Williams and Mazon to increase awareness on campus.
“All of these events planned are extremely important because they will definitely further our understanding of cultural diversity,” said Thomas Vitlo ’09.
“I think that Black History Month is important because we tend to lose touch with the truth of slavery. We lose appreciation and it is important to be reminded of the solidarity of the African Americans,” said Daniel Arroyo ’09.
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