Events

Join us as we celebrate Black History Month 2025 with Black Legacies & Horizons! This year’s theme honors the resilience, sacrifices, and remarkable contributions of our forebears while envisioning a promising future ahead. Together, let’s honor the strength of our past, embrace the power of our present, and inspire limitless possibilities for the generations to come.

Black History Month 2025 Events!

"BLACK LEGACIES & HORIZONS"

The UMD community has curated an engaging and exciting array of programs and events for Black History Month - BHM 2025!

Learn more here.

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Juno Award-winning Afro-Cuban group Okan, led by singer-songwriters Elizabeth Rodriguez on violin and Magdelys Savigne on percussion, will perform at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Thursday, February 20 at 8pm. 

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On February 21st, 2025, The 1856 Project will hold its second Annual Research Update, during which the project's second research report will be discussed. The 1856 Project investigates the University of Maryland’s connection to the regional context of slavery. It is the local chapter of Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a multi-institutional and international consortium of colleges and universities encouraging their institutions to think about their connections to slavery and the slave trade while addressing historical and contemporary issues surrounding race and inequality in higher education. The second annual presentation of findings will provide a research update based on historical information uncovered in 2024 by The 1856 Project members, a BSOS Summer Research Initiatives participant, a Fall 2024 semester Graduate Assistant, and community historians.

February 21, 2025 
In-person and Virtual via Zoom
3pm–5pm ET
Stamp Student Union, Grand Ballroom Lounge (Room 1209)

Learn more and register.

Ntozake Shange’s highly influential 1976 choreopoem for colored girls… might well be the most performed and important piece of theater created expressly by and for Black women in the history of the United States. The work has been adapted for both film and television and can boast a Tony-nominated Broadway revival as recently as 2022. UMD School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies faculty members Ama Law and Fatima Quander direct a loving rendition of Shange’s masterpiece that proves its timelessness.
 

Performances February 21-28 at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

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Join the BSU-UMD Social Justice Alliance for a powerful and thought-provoking discussion on the lynching of Emmett Till and the modern-day murder of Lt. Richard W. Collins III with The Barn author Wright Thompson and mother of Lt. Collins, Dawn Collins. Moderated by Sociology Professor Rashawn Ray, this conversation will discuss how echoes of our country’s lynching past create shadows of racial violence in the present. We hope this dialogue will elicit a reckoning that contributes to healing and the pursuit of social justice.

Wright Thompson will begin by discussing The Barn, his deeply reflective work that examines family legacies, memory, and the spaces that connect past and present. Following this, Thompson will engage in a profound dialogue with Mrs. Dawn Collins, whose son, Lt. Richard Collins III, was tragically killed in an act of modern-day racial violence. Together, they will reflect on the enduring legacy of historic lynching and its modern-day manifestations in the United States, highlighting how past injustices continue to reverberate in contemporary society.

Learn more and register here.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 11:00 am - 7:30 pm

St Mary’s Hall, Multipurpose Room

Get ready for an unforgettable day packed with music, vibrant dance, a captivating cinema workshop, insightful reflections, delicious snacks, refreshing beverages and an epic party atmosphere! Dive into the heart of this celebration and immerse yourself in the rich cultural traditions that make it truly special. Don’t miss out—this is an experience you’ll want to be part of!

Learn more here.

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Tawes Hall, 2115

John Ernest, the Judge Hugh Morris Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Delaware, will deliver the Stringer lecture. The generous bequest from the estate of John G. Stringer is intended for the “advancement of British and American 18th and 19th century literary studies.” Since its inception in 2014, the Stringer Fund has helped sponsor a range of speakers and professionalization events for graduate students specializing in 18th- and 19th-century literary studies.

Learn more here.

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Don't miss an evening with Juilliard-trained composer, percussionist and pianist Julius Rodriguez.

Thursday, February 27 at 8pm, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

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Join us for a powerful film screening of Black Lives Matter in Latin America, followed by an insightful discussion with Dr. Gladys Mitchell-Walthour. Don’t miss the opportunity to engage in a thought-provoking conversation about race, social justice and the impact of global activism.

Learn more here.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Cafritz Foundation Theatre

ABOUT THE EVENT
Groundbreaking Black puppeteer Megan Peace Piphus will share her experiences and career highlights, including her work on Sesame Street. Dean Stephanie Shonekan will moderate the conversation. Megan will also do a short performance with her favorite puppets.

Learn more here.

Please join us for a talk by Professor Robin D. G. Kelley of UCLA. This event is part of the Bebe Koch Petrou Lecture Series.

About the Speaker:

Robin D. G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nahs Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA and a public intellectual whose numerous books include co-edited volumes such as The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights and Riots in Britain and the United States (2015); Walter Rodney, The Russian Revolution: A View From the Third World ( 2018); as well as monographs, Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (2012); Thelonious Monk (2009); and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002).

Learn more here.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Kogod Theatre

ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
The story of Anansi and his trickster family is put into a sleek hip hop context for Hip Hop Anansi, a modern, all-ages adaptation of a traditional Ashanti folktale. Anansi wants the Golden Fly Pie Award for Tricksterism and is not above outwitting his own family to win it. But his rhyming, break dancing, graffiti-ing children are ready to claim the prize in their own right. Paige Hernandez, Associate Artistic Director of Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, directs this new vision of a classic African folk tale as penned by the acclaimed actress, playwright and singer-songwriter Eisa Davis.

All performances include integrated open captions.

PERFORMANCE DATES
Fri, Apr 18, 2025 • 7:30PM
Sat, Apr 19, 2025 • 1PM & 4PM
Fri, Apr 25, 2025 • 7:30PM
Sat, Apr 26, 2025 • 11AM

Learn more and buy tickets here.