When
Historian Carter G. Woodson initiated the celebration of “Negro History Week,”
in 1926, his hope was that that it would inspire the recognition of black
history as an important component in the teaching of world history.
Nearly 90 years later, the United States has seen the March on Washington, an
end to segregation and the election of a black president. So, where does that
leave what is now-known as “Black History Month?”
Join
Eric Kofi Acree, director of Cornell University’s John Henrik Clarke Africana
Library, for “Black History Month: Is it Still Needed, Where Do We Go
From Here?,” a community conversation and panel discussion, featuring
Robert L. Harris, Jr. and Margaret Washington, February 16 at 2 p.m. in the Tompkins County Public Library’s
BorgWarner Community Room.
This
program will explore the significance of Black History Month-- in light of this
year’s sesquicentennial celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th
anniversary of the March on Washington. Panelists will reflect on why it
is still important to commemorate, acknowledge and participate in the
celebration of the contributions made by people of African descent and look
into how far blacks have come in the achievement of freedom, justice and equality.
Harris,
a professor of African American History, former vice provost for diversity and
faculty development at Cornell University and former director of Cornell’s
Africana Studies and Research Center, has contributed more than 60 articles and
chapters to academic journals and books, including “The Columbia Guide to
African American History Since 1939.” He serves as National
Historian for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, past president of the Association for
the Study of Afro-American Life and History, and is a recipient of the Perkins
Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony at Cornell, the Woodson
Scholar’s Medallion from the Association for the Study of African American Life
and History, and the Cook Award for Commitment to Women’s Issues at Cornell.
Washington
joined the Cornell University faculty in 1988 and specializes in African
American history and culture, African American women, and the American
South. She has been a Fellow at the National Endowment for the
Humanities, a Fellow at Cornell’s Society for the Humanities and Senior Fellow
at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Humanities. She has published
numerous articles and books, including the only edited and annotated edition of
the “Narrative of Sojourner Truth” and “Sojourner Truth’s America,” which
received the Letitia Woods Brown Award for the best publication on African
American women from the Association of Black Women Historians and won the
inaugural Darlene Clark Hine Award for the best book in African American
women’s and gender history from the Organization of American Historians.
This
program is free and open to the public, audience participation will be
encouraged.
For more
information, contact Carrie Wheeler-Carmenatty at (607) 272-4557 extension 248
or cwheeler@tcpl.org.
