Black Heritage Month Explores ‘Black Bodies, Black Lives’

Lafayette will celebrate Black Heritage Month in February with guest speakers, film screenings, an art exhibit, and community discussions.

Co-host Valerie Melson ’17 speaks during last year’s Black Heritage Month finale.

“We have organized a robust programming series this year that will have the theme ‘Black Bodies, Black Lives,’” says John McKnight, dean of intercultural development. “We selected this theme as it echoes conversations happening at a national level about historical and contemporary race relations, particularly as related to law enforcement and the justice system.”

The month’s keynote talk will be presented by Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter with the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger, at 7 p.m., Monday, Feb. 2, in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104. In 1989, Mitchell undertook a meticulous review of the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers. His efforts led to the conviction and life sentence of Ku Klux Klan member Byron de la Beckwith. He has since worked to help solve the murders of several other activists from the Civil Rights Era. In 1996, he was portrayed by Jerry Levine in the Rob Reiner film, Ghosts of Mississippi, about the Evers case.

Chanel Mowatt ’17 and Darius Glover ’14 in last year’s Theater Department production of “Clybourne Park.”

An exhibit of works by famous African-American artists who have worked with the Experimental Printmaking Institute will run Jan. 30- Feb. 20 in the EPI/Riley Temple Gallery in the Portlock Black Cultural Center.

The month’s events are coordinated by the Office of Intercultural Development and are sponsored by the Africana Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs, Association of Black Collegians, EPI, NIA multicultural women’s group, the offices of Gender & Sexuality and Religious & Spiritual Life, and the Department of Religious Studies. For more information, contact Intercultural Development, (610) 330-5320.

See the full schedule and descriptions

• Jan. 28 – Noon, Interfaith Chapel of Hogg Hall: “Intelligence is Not Enough” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Legacy of a Moral Education. This is the annual MLK Memorial Luncheon, featuring speaker Harrison Bailey III `95.
• Jan. 29 – 8 p.m., Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104: Ghosts of Mississippi film screening
• Feb. 2 – 7 p.m., Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104: Chasing After the Real Ghosts of Mississippi, keynote lecture by Jerry Mitchell, investigative reporter with the Clarion-Ledger
• Feb. 3 – 5 p.m., Keefe Commons: The Hypersexualization of Black Bodies: a discussion led by Sean Courtney ’15, a student assistant in the Office of Gender & Sexuality Programs
• Feb. 8 – 6 p.m. Portlock Black Cultural Center: Fruitvale Station, film screening
• Feb. 10 – 4:30 p.m., Kirby Hall of Civil Rights 104: “The Ebola Nurse: Quarantining the African Virus.” Lawyer Steven J. Hyman ’62 will discuss his client Kaci Hickox, a nurse for Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone.
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  Members of the Association of Black Collegians board Ben Bulluck ’16, from left, Jennifer Schroeder ’15, Ashley Boyd ’15, Dominique Tucker ’15, Ariell Christian ’17, Aaron Bart-Addison ’16, and Hubert Lavie ’17 hang out during last year’s Black Heritage Month Finale.

  Feb. 18 – 7 p.m., Colton Chapel: Dear White People, film screening and post-discussion with the writer and director, Justin Simien

• Feb. 21 – 2 p.m.,
  Interfaith Chapel – Hogg Hall: “Easton Lives Matter” community discussion with state and local elected officials and police departments
• Feb. 25 – 4:30 p.m., Gendebien Room of Skillman Library: “Doubly Marked in the American Empire” lecture by Rev. Shanell T. Smith, assistant professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Hartford Seminary