The Colby Echo

Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: News

Media Credit: upgradetravelbetter.com

In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a graduate of Harvard University and a prominent professor at Howard University, started Negro History Week to celebrate and to remember black history. The occasion was held on the second week of February in commemoration of the birthdays of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former President Abraham Lincoln. Since then, Negro History Week has evolved into Black History Month, and is recognized each February in both the United States and Canada. Prior to the twentieth century, black history was not widely studied and it was rarely documented in history books. Many credit Woodson with updating history through the establishment of black studies.

At Colby, Black History Month is celebrated through several events organized by campus groups such as the Department of African-American Studies, the Department of American Studies, the Pugh Center and Students Organized for Black and Hispanic Unity (SOBHU).

On February 10, the Department of African-American Studies hosted Dr. Anthony Pinn, professor of humanities and religious studies at Rice University, for a lecture entitled "Religion, Black Bodies, and the 'Look' of the Civil Rights Struggle." The lecture was designed to "give attention to the shifting aesthetics of black bodies within the civil rights movement as a primary arena in which religious issues are defined and worked out."

The Departments of African-American Studies, American Studies and Philosophy coordinated a Black History Month Faculty Panel on February 18 entitled, "The Quest for Black Citizenship in the Americas." Assistant Professor of Anthropology Chandra D. Bhimull, Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies Gillian Frank, Professor and Chair of Philosophy Jill P. Gordon and Associate Professor of American Studies Margaret T. McFadden were present to discuss the issue, which turned into a conversation on race from the students in the audience.

McFadden said, "I would like to suggest that we all make it our business to learn more about all the different cultures that make up US history and present. Our vision of cultural literacy has to grow, and that can only be a good thing as we move forward together." Though the panel was productive for those who attended, Gordon said, "In my opinion, the low attendance at such important events is a serious problem."

A screening of the film Rebirth of a Nation, sponsored by the Department of African-American Studies, took place on February 21 in Pulver Pavilion. The film was D.J. Spooky's "remix" of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, one of the most racially unjust films and the first blockbuster to be shown in the White House. On February 23, the classic film, Driving Miss Daisy was also shown.

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