The following events will take place during the month of February as part of Clark University’s Black History Month Celebration. The theme for the month’s programs — “Black is” — is both a statement and a question. It is designed to explore the complexities, challenges and opportunities of African American identity today.
These events are free and open to the public.
Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
National Black HIV AIDS Awareness Day
Jefferson Academic Center, Room 320
This event is sponsored by Black Student Union. For more information, contact Dan Pologe.
President’s Lecture and contribution to Clark’s African American Intellectual Culture Series
Monday, Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.
“Black Is…Complicated”
Daniels Theater, Atwood Hall
Melissa Harris-Perry is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She is a columnist for the Nation, and appears regularly on MSNBC and will host her own show on MSNBC in February. Harris-Perry investigates the challenges facing contemporary black Americans. She works to understand the multiple creative ways that African Americans find agency in response to these challenges. Her latest book, “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America” (Yale 2011), argues that persistent harmful stereotypes — invisible to many but painfully familiar to black women — profoundly shape black women’s politics, contribute to policies that treat them unfairly, and make it difficult for black women to assert their rights in the political arena.
The Clark Concert Choir will perform the Carter arrangement of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (often called the “Negro National Anthem”) at this event, with guest tenor soloist and Clark MBA graduate student Paris Prince.
This event is sponsored by the Higgins School of Humanities, the Office of the President, the Black Student Union, Dean of the College, the Office of Intercultural Affairs, Residential Life & Housing, Political Science Department, the Mosakowski Institute, and the Martin Luther King and Black History Month Program Committee.
Presentation
Thursday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m.
“Black since 1912”
John and Kay Bassett Admissions Center
This event celebrates Louis Clarkson Tyree (Class of 1912), the first black student to attend Clark. This event is sponsored by Black Student Union. For more information, contact Dan Pologe.
Performance
Friday, Feb. 24, 8 to 10 p.m.
“Black Monologues”
The Grind, basement, Higgins University Center
Students will express themselves through the spoken word, poetry, stand-up comedy, or simply talking about being black, and will share lessons they have learned, or a black experience they have had. This event is sponsored by Clark’s Black Student Union. For more information contact Bry’onna Mention.