Past Events

Friday, February 14, 2025 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Parren J. Mitchell Art/Sociology Building, 4213A Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture

One of this nation's great thinkers and speakers, Frederick Douglass was enslaved from birth on the eastern shore of Maryland, After self-emancipation, he became a leader of abolitionists and an advisor to President Abraham Lincoln. Douglass never knew his birthday, so he chose as his birthday the day of love, Valentine's Day, February 14th.

This Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14th, join members of the campus community and beyond in the Collaboratory as we celebrate Douglass Day with a transcribe-a-thon featuring the African American Perspectives Collection at the Library of Congress. There will be all sorts of goodies, including a birthday cake to celebrate Frederick Douglass's birthday, and we'll connect to the larger community of fellow transcribers across the nation.

Learn more and sign up here.

Thursday, February 13, 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
St Mary’s Hall, Multipurpose Room

Join us in the Multipurpose Room on the ground floor of St. Mary's Hall for a talk and Q&A discussion with UMD Professor Rachel Schine (SLLC-Arabic, History) about her new book in honor of Black History Month. Professor Schine's book, "Black Knights: Arabic Epic and the Making of Medieval Race," was published in 2024 by the University of Chicago Press.

In "Black Knights" Rachel Schine reveals how the Arabic-speaking world developed a different form of racial knowledge than their European neighbors during the Middle Ages. Unlike in European vernaculars, Arabic-language ideas about ethnic difference emerged from conversations extending beyond the Mediterranean, from the Sahara to the Indian Ocean. In these discourses, Schine argues, racialized blackness became central to ideas about a global, ethnically inclusive Muslim world.

Schine traces the emergence of these new racial logics through popular Islamic epics, drawing on legal, medical, and religious literatures from the period to excavate a diverse and ever-changing conception of blackness and race. The result is a theoretically nuanced case for the existence and malleability of racial logics in premodern Islamic contexts across a variety of social and literary formations.

Learn more here.

Celebrate Black History Month by joining UMD Libraries for our annual Black History Month Read-a-thon in McKeldin’s Portico Room. Readers from across the libraries will share excerpts from books that center Black voices, experiences, and imagination. Light refreshments will be offered. This event will also be streamed on the UMD Libraries’ Youtube.

Learn more here.

Every February, Black History Month offers us a meaningful opportunity to honor the achievements, resilience, and groundbreaking contributions of African Americans throughout history. Join Ray Van Dyke for an inspiring webinar as we spotlight some of the most notable Black inventors whose innovations have shaped and enriched our world. Discover the remarkable stories behind their inventions and learn how their legacies continue to impact society today.

LIVE SESSION ONLY, RECORDING WILL NOT BE PROVIDED

Tuesday, Feb.11 | 12:00-1:00 PM

Learn more and register.

Did you know that the first complete opera by a Black American has been hidden in a single manuscript for more than 130 years? Edmond Dédé, a fourth-generation free person of color born in 1827 New Orleans, had an incredibly successful career as a conductor and composer in Bordeaux, France, writing nearly 100 critically and popularly acclaimed works for the French stage. His magnum opus, however–a four act French grand opera on themes from Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves–had yet to receive a premiere at the time of his death and languished, unrecognized, in private collections and libraries for over a century.

Opera Lafayette, with Artistic Director Designate Patrick Dupré Quigley, and in partnership with New Orleans’ OperaCréole’s Givonna Joseph (who will lead the Pre-Show Discussions), have painstakingly transcribed this monumental work and will present the long overdue world premiere of Dédé’s masterpiece, 138 years after its composition.

Learn more here.

Friday, February 7, 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Cole Student Activity Building , 1207

Mark your calendar! Join us at The Driskell Center Gallery for the opening of our spring 2025 exhibition, Future Histories: New Acquisitions at The Driskell Center. All Driskell Center events are free and open to the public. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. Light refreshments will be served. There will be brief remarks at 6 p.m. Come and go as you please, make sure to pick up your Black History Month giveaway, and cast your vote for the center's next acquisition!

Learn more and RSVP here.

• Thu. Feb 06, 2025 3:00 PM – to4:30 PM

  Thu. Feb 06, 2025 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
  Nyumburu Multipurpose Room

This Circle will bring together folx of the African diaspora to uplift Black history while envisioning a future of Black liberation and radical care. Restorative circles derive from Indigenous ancestral wisdom as a means for individual and community healing, and trained facilitators will provide 6-7 questions for small groups to reflect upon and share experiences with one another.

Learn more here.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Leah Smith Recital Hall

In celebration of Black History Month, Dean Stephanie Shonekan invites you to an exclusive conversation with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves as part of the Spring 2025 ARHU Dean’s Lecture Series. Denyce will share insights from her career, reflecting on her trailblazing journey  as a Black woman in opera.

The discussion will explore Denyce’s work as both an artist and advocate, including a focus on The Denyce Graves Foundation, which is dedicated to uplifting and supporting contemporary Black artists while uncovering the rich history of Black artists from the past. This timely conversation will be enriched by Dean Shonekan’s own research, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of culture and performance. An audience Q&A will conclude the dialogue.

Following the lecture, a reception will provide an opportunity to meet Denyce Graves.

This intimate event is limited, so be sure to register early for free admission before seats are filled!

We look forward to welcoming you to an evening celebrating the power of black voices in the arts and the legacy of those who paved the way.

Learn more and reserve tickets here.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025
4 - 5:20pm

Where is Wakanda? Is it place? An idea? Who is T’Challa? Who are the African heroes when it comes to the conceptualising of African space and cities? Images of future African cities tend to resemble Wakanda, dominated by high-rise glass and steel structures—an aspiration of many cities in emerging African economies. While there is a need to imagine alternatives to current trajectories of development of African cities, it is important to consider images that lead to the creation of inclusive spaces, a scale that is accessible and a relationship with the public realm that is meaningful to the majority of city residents. A personal perspective and an anecdotal narrative (from South Africa, Sudan and Egypt) is combined with reference to some academic texts. The African City is re-imagined as a livable and lovable city. These concepts imply that cities are just, attractive, functional and resonate with many communities over time. In this way, cities become sustainable by accommodating for all people and allowing for diversity, choice and change. The future image of these cities thus also strongly relates to their geographical, social, cultural, economic and historical contexts.

Learn more here.

Friday, January 24th • 9:30 AM to 10:45 AM

2130 HJ Patterson Hall, University of Maryland

In “Black English and the Myth of ‘Standard’ English” (related to McWhorter’s talk "Why Most Humans Talk in Two or More Ways"), Eusebia Mont (HESP) will lead this discussion on the complexities of code-switching, inspired by John McWhorter's New York Times columns. We will explore how language shapes identity, social dynamics, and cultural authenticity while challenging the myth of "standard" English.

Learn more and register here.

Image

Join the BSU-UMD Social Justice Alliance, 2nd Lt. Richard Collins Foundation and The Mission Continues, to celebrate Lt. Richard Collins' birthday with a day of service at Strength 2 Love 2 Farm in Baltimore, MD. 

Saturday, Dec 7, 2024, 11am - 2:30pm

Learn more here

Image

Language, Power, and Identity: Black Languages as Tools of Liberation and Expression

Image

Join the Department of African American and Africana Studies for their first Brown Bag of the semester. Dr. Beka Guluma will be presenting his preliminary research titled, "The African American Dream? Comparing Black Immigrant and Native-Born Black American Beliefs about Social Mobility"

"Scholars and observers have long noted that Black Americans exhibit a high degree of political unity. Despite great diversity within Black America, Black Americans tend to overwhelmingly back the Democratic Party and show wide support for a host of social programs and policies designed to uplift Black America. But with a large and growing Black immigrant population, the question emerges: is Black political unity waning? In this Brown Bag, I present very preliminary research that seeks to address the question of  whether Black immigrants exhibit similar levels of support for the Democratic Party, and for pro-Black social programs and policies as do native-born Black Americans."

Event Date and Time: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 from 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Location: Hybrid event - 1102 Taliaferro Hall/ Zoom

Learn more here

Image

You're invited to the annual Social Justice Fall Workshop hosted by the BSU-UMD Social Justice Alliance and 2nd Lt. Richard W. Collins III Foundation! The theme of this interactive workshop is "Cultivating a Multiracial Community Towards Healing and Justice."
 

The BSU/UMD SJA Fall Workshop will be held on Friday, October 25th, from 10:00am to 3:00pm, in The Robert H. Smith School of Business (Room 2202 - Second floor), located on UMD's campus at 7621 Mowatt Ln, College Park, MD 20742. Lunch will be provided for attendees. Please RSVP by Friday, October 18th.
 

Learn more and register here.

Act Like You Know is a podcast preview and talk-back event that centers the technical and professional communication value of Black cultural and rhetorical practices. Featuring Dapper Dan Midas (aka DDm), who hosts the Secretary of Shade YouTube channel, the event will screen excerpts from the first episode of the Act Like You Know podcast, followed by a talk-back style panel discussion. Together, we’ll explore the use of Black and queer cultural knowledge and language practices to communicate and translate complex social and political commentary. The event’s goal is to spark a dialogue about language, expertise, and ethos among folks within and outside the academy and to prompt us all to consider the cultural, rhetorical, and linguistic skills that Black (and other marginalized) writers and communicators bring to the task of making complex and specialized knowledge more legible, accessible, and ultimately more useful.

October 24, 2024 Tawes Hall, Room 1121 Ulrich Recital Hall 5-7pm, followed by a light reception

Hosted by the Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership through the Humanities

Learn more and RSVP here

Image

Second Annual TerrapinSTRONG Symposium

Image

In the early 1960s, Malcolm X famously criticized the philosophical and political bases of the African American “civil rights” movement, calling instead for a turn to what he called “the level of human rights” and redress through the United Nations rather than the U.S. federal government. This lecture seeks to understand the political and philosophical contradictions of Malcolm’s internationalism by placing its surprising mix of revolutionary liberalism and anti-imperialist nationalism in productive tension with earlier African American internationalisms, especially efforts at “worldmaking” through the United Nations. Recovering the important philosophical differences within oft-collapsed accounts of “black internationalism,”  the lecture takes stock of the different philosophical justifications for engaging the politics of global governance by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Patterson. Taking seriously these distinctions as central to the careful study and reconstruction of black political thought, I consider the lessons that Malcolm’s trajectory portends for contemporary efforts to connect aims of global justice and peace to African American struggles for racial justice.
 

This event will be held in a hybrid format both in-person and online from 2:00-3:30pm ET on October 23, 2024.

Learn more and register here.

Image

Drop in to the Stamp Student Union from 12-1:30 on October 23 in the MICA Cozy Corner to enjoy some food and engage in an open community dialogue about Black Art, and why it's so important to do it in public!⁠

Learn more here.