As Black History Month approaches in February, the Black Studies program takes initiative to both spark awareness on campus and possibly convert more students to 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, multicultural festival, the LaFarge Convocation keynote address by Dr. Diana Hayes, the Dr. King Vision Award dinner and a youth workshop for selected Bridgeport middle school students.
Dr. 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 more student involvement is still encouraged.
“The Black Studies program is a vehicle to explore the outlying community we’re in,” she said.
White’s co-director, Dr. Yohuru Williams, 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 February 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 Dr. Warren Perry is invited to present artifacts and information uncovered throughout his own research as part of the Visiting Scholar Series, in which a recently established scholar is invited to come to the campus and give a public lecture or class.
Dr. Warren 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 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 apparent amongst students, according to Larry Mazon of the Center for Multicultural Relations. Yet, 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, who feels it is a goal of the program to pinpoint the direction students want to take with their own projects.
The Office of Multicultural Relations has separated into two branches that will each address the issue of diversity. The Office of Institutional Diversity Initiatives that 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,” says 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,” says Daniel Arroyo ’09.
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