Notre Dame celebrates black history
By NATASHA GRANT
News Writer
Simply themed "Celebrate Black History Month 2003," a series of events to commemorate the history of blacks in America began Tuesday and will continue through Mar. 3. Sponsored by the Department of African and African-American Studies, events will feature a broad range of art forms including music, filmmaking, several lectures and a food workshop.
The month started with an event entitled "A Taste of African-American Food, Culture & History," featuring two speakers who discussed how food is linked to black culture, said Keith Lee, assistant director for Program Development and Operations. Lee said black dishes, like fried chicken and okra, were available for people to sample while the speakers, John Charles Bryant and Danny Chambliss, talked about the significance of these foods.
According to Lee, the events are intended to bring about a better appreciation for black culture.
"We hope to show that African-American culture is linked to American culture through art, film and an appreciation of Africa," he said.
Events will wrap-up Mar. 3 with a lecture that Lee said was already planned prior to the planning of Black History Month.
"We believe that while February is the month designated for Black History Month, we should celebrate it through the year," Lee said.
Christy Fleming, assistant professional specialist in the First Year of Studies and Gina Shropshire are the coordinators for the events. Fleming, who said she tries to get involved in anything involving blacks, said that there was not much of a celebration last February and from observing the itinerary of events at other schools, Fleming felt that something should be done.
"Since Notre Dame is one of the leading institution in the community, we felt that we should be putting on something," said Fleming.
Fleming said that she hopes that a majority of students will attend the events because, although their primary intent is to uplift students who have black heritage, they are not just for minorities.
"[The celebration] is not just for African-Americans, although they are the focus," she said. "We needed to have programs to reflect who we are but everything is open to the South Bend community."
Fleming said students like Jemar Tisby and Tona Boyd, who are helping to organize a Mar. 2 prayer service, have been a big help. In an attempt to spread the events out, she said that they decided to have the service in March because February is the shortest month of the year and she wanted the prayer service to be the last event on the program.
Fleming hopes that the events will be able to bring across awareness and understanding in light of all the talks and discussions in the recent past about affirmative action.
All News Stories for Wednesday, February 5, 2003
