Events draw attention to Black History Month
By Chelsea Donohue, Staff Writer
February is Black History Month and Gettysburg College has a wide variety of events planned throughout the coming weeks. The celebration is titled, “Love Who You Want: Exploring Sexuality, Gender, and Race from the African American Perspective,” and will continue throughout the month of February with several different activities, including speakers, dinners, and documentaries.
Thus far, there have been various events to celebrate the start of Black History Month. One feature is in Shmucker Art Gallery, where the lithographs of Kara Walker, a MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award winner, will be displayed. The art, which is on loan from the Middlebury College Museum of Art, is called “Harper’s Pictorial Imagery” and addresses the issues of identity, race, and sexuality through images from the Civil War era. The display will be up until March 8. In addition, the documentary “James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket” was shown on Feb. 6. The film delves into the life of the famous author and human rights activist, who was black, impoverished, and gay. On Feb. 8 and 9, there will be a Social Justice Institute event, Voices of Inclusion, sponsored by College Life.
The week of February 10 will be host to a number of events, including a dinner at 6 p.m. on Feb. 11 in Diaspora House with Aliyya Abdur-Rahman, sponsored by ALLies and the Black Student Union. On Feb. 12, there will be a dinner at the Dining Center, called “Food for the SOUL.” The Gettysburg College Choir will perform and dinner will be served that features different African, Caribbean, and Southern foods. A lecture will also be given on that day at 6:30 p.m. in Masters 110, called, “Against the Closet: Black Political Longing and the Exotics of Race” with Aliyya Abdul-Rahman. Another documentary will be shown on Feb. 13 at 6 p.m. in McCreary 101, called “Long Way Home: The Loving Story.” It showcases the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving in the Civil Rights era. The Junction will be host to an event on Feb.14 at 7 p.m., called “Charles Neblett, Singing for Freedom.” Neblett was involved in a number of sit-ins and marches during the Civil Rights Movement in Illinois, as well as being a founding member of the SNCC Freedom Singers. The week will end with a Coffeehouse event at the Junction on Feb. 15 at 9 p.m., featuring both students and the poet Taalam Acey.
On Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. in Masters 110, former NFL player and current LGBTQ Surrogate for President Obama, Wade Davis will speak in a lecture entitled, “Interference: When Masculinity and Being Gay Collide.” Carolyn Rouse will also speak that week, on Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in CUB 260. Ms. Rouse is currently an Anthropology and African American Studies professor at Princeton University and will be giving a lecture entitled, “African American Muslim Women and Citizenship.” Another lecture will be given on Feb. 22 in Paul Recital Hall. Deborah Willis, the University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts and Affiliate of Africana Studies, College of the Arts and Sciences, NYU, will be speaking at 6 p.m., following a reception at 4:30. The lecture, called, “Visualizing Emancipation: What did Freedom Look Like?” will go along with the exhibit in Schmucker by Kara Walker.
The last week of February will feature the Emerging Scholars Conference on Feb. 23 in CUB 260. This all-day conference will feature discussions and dialogues on the topic of Africana Studies. The last event of the month will be another dinner in Diaspora House on Feb. 28 from 6-8 p.m. It will also feature music, with the title of “For the LOVE of Music: Dinner and Listening Party of Jazz Greats.”