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Student dance group, "A Time to Dance," led by Melvin Miller (center).
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Lakia Washington, CC'02 (right), chair of the Black Heritage Month committee, and Temi Fasoye, left, student activities coordinator.
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Shaun Kelly performs African drumming at the Black Heritage Month reception.
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Columbians did not await the first of the month to begin their February-long celebration of America's Black Heritage. An Opening Reception with African drumming, gospel singing and interpretive dancing was held in Lerner Hall auditorium last Friday evening, Jan. 27. And at midnight on Monday, Jan. 31, a vigil was held around the in the Malcolm X Lounge of Hartley Hall, during which a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech was played.
But more than a succession of events, gatherings and festivities from now until March, Black Heritage Month at Columbia has traditionally been organized around a theme. For 2000, the theme is revival.
"With everybody looking to the future because of the millennium, I decided to look at the past," said Lakia Washington, CC'02, chair of the steering committee for Black Heritage Month and vice president of the Black Students Organization (BSO). "I thought about the people who got us here and whether I'd have the courage to march in the street and fight for our rights the way they did. More than just remembering them, I think we should strive to live our lives with the kind of courage they had--that's the heritage we're celebrating now; that's why our theme this year is revival."
In keeping with revival, Washington added that the 2000 rendition of Black Heritage Month at Columbia will also be marked by a stronger presence than in previous years of the Christian faith and the church, an institution historically central in black culture. A Revival Week of workshops and colloquia begins on Feb. 21 and leads in to the Christian Conference of Feb. 25-26. The recently founded Black Church at Columbia will participate for the first time in the Conference. Students from area colleges and universities have also been invited to Morningside Heights for Revival Week and the Christian Conference.
Also for the first time, the Columbia and Barnard Black Heritage Month Committees cooperated, organizing a single calendar of events rather than two competing calendars as in the past. The venue for the Barnard fashion show on Feb. 26 is thus at Columbia in Lerner Hall, but the month's closing ceremonies on the 29th will be held in lower level McIntosh on the Barnard campus.
Washington pointed to the Black Alumni Association's reception in Low Rotunda on Feb. 10, the African Students Association's Culture Show on the 19th in Lerner and the Black Heritage Month keynote address in Low on the 24th as events of particular importance during February.
The keynote speaker on Feb. 24 is Arnett Doctor, instrumental in bringing to public attention the story of Rosewood, a small black community in rural Florida attacked in the early 1920s by a racist mob. Doctor's connection to the story, which for more than 70 years went unnoticed by history, is through a former Rosewood resident and survivor: his mother. Thanks in part to Doctor, director John Singleton (Boyz in the Hood) made a movie about Rosewood in 1997. Washington said that the movie, also entitled Rosewood, will be screened during Black Heritage Month; times and locations of the screenings will be posted.
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