This year’s Black History Month events look at the Black experience from the vantage of arts, sports, science and politics. Emory’s inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice, Darren Hutchinson, will give a talk titled “Anti-Antiracism: Fighting Backlash, Building Justice,” and ESPN SportsCenter anchor Elle Duncan will look at race, sports and African American history, to name just a few campus happenings. Most events are virtual and open to all unless otherwise noted.
The 2022 theme — “Black Health and Wellness” — is a timely topic, given the disproportionate burden COVID-19 has placed on the Black community and the collective trauma still suffered due to the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and Ahmaud Arbery. These twin pandemics coincide with a spike in suicides among Blacks.
“These last couple of years have been exceptionally hard on the Black community,” says Carol E. Henderson, Emory’s chief diversity officer, vice provost for diversity and inclusion, and adviser to the president. “This is a moment for us to pause and say, ‘Let’s reset. Let’s take care of ourselves. Let’s start the healing process.’”
Black History Month, with its current national theme focusing on health and wellness, offers just such an opportunity to reset. “Black History month allows us to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are and where we hope to be,” Henderson continues. “It’s that hope I cling to even in the face of the events of the last two years. The Black community is resilient and there is always the next chapter.”
How Black History Month began
What has now become Black History Month began in 1926 as Negro History Week, created by historian Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which sets each year’s national theme and is hosting a virtual festival for 2022. Woodson’s aim was to celebrate the heritage and achievements of Black people and spotlight the role they have played in U.S. history. He timed the week to coincide with the birthdays of both Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln.
Fifty years later, in 1976, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month during the country’s 1976 bicentennial. Ford called upon Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history,” History.com reports.
In 2016, President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, delivered his own message. “Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes,” Obama said.
“It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America,” he continued.
Black History Month 2022 at Emory
Here is the current schedule of Black History Month activities.
Monday, Feb. 7
12 p.m.
Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras
Registration required
Claudrena Harold, professor of African American and African Studies and history at the University of Virginia, will look at five towering gospel artists — Shirley Caesar, Andrae Crouch, the Winans, the Clark Sisters and Kirk Franklin — and how their work opened space for new conversations on race, the relationship between religiosity and blackness, and politics.
Wednesday, Feb. 9
12 p.m.
Registration required
All are invited to reflect and decompress in a mid-week, mid-day time of sacred music. Join Maury Allums, director of music, and the Emory University Office of Spiritual and Religious Life in taking a moment to breathe and connect with others in our community.
Thursday, Feb. 10
6 p.m.
Registration required
Join the James Weldon Johnson Institute as it hosts a wide-ranging discussion with a diverse group of scholars who seek to answer questions related to the experiences of both Blacks and Asian Americans (both separately and in relation to each other), where these groups find common ground and the stressors that strain alliances.
Monday, Feb. 14
12 p.m.
Finding Freedom: “Back to Africa” Movements and Black Emigration
Registration required
Niambi Carter, associate professor of political science at Howard University, will explore how Black people use movement as political strategy and how this may help us reconsider, not only back-to-Africa movements, but how Black Americans are considered in past and contemporary conversations of emigration.
Tuesday, Feb. 15
5:30 p.m.
Love Noir: A Conversation about Black Love
Alumni Memorial University Center, Room 106
Join the Office for Racial and Cultural Engagement and the Emory Black Student Union for an interactive conversation about Black love.
Wednesday, Feb. 16
4 p.m.
Book Launch: “You Truly Assumed”
Registration required
Emory undergraduate Laila Sabreen’s debut novel chronicles the stories of three Black Muslim teenage girls as they navigate Islamophobia and grow as activists together through their blog. Sabreen will join Margari Hill, executive director of the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, to discuss Black Muslim women’s experiences, literature and representation in young adult fiction.
Wednesday, Feb. 16
5 p.m.
In Our Hands: Improving Health Outcomes for Black Mothers and Infants
Registration required
In the 18th annual Hamilton E. Holmes Lecture, Cherie Hill, assistant professor in gynecology and obstetrics in the Emory School of Medicine, will moderate a panel of health care leaders and advocates about what health care providers can do to change to grim statistics facing Black mothers.
Monday, Feb. 21
12 p.m.
Our Good Fortune: A History of Black Banking in the American South
Registration required
Brandon Windford, associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, discusses the social, political and economic history of Black banks in the region with rich details about the men and women bankers responsible for their existence. These financial institutions represented the possibilities and strivings of Black people and contributed to a thriving separate Black economy.
Monday, Feb. 21
2:30 p.m.
Anthropology Building, Room 303
Rachel Watkins, a biocultural anthropologist at American University with an emphasis on African American biohistory and social history, looks at relationships between health, disease and social location in people whose remains are in the W. Montague Cobb anatomical collection and interred at the New York African Burial Ground.
Tuesday, Feb. 22
5 p.m.
Anti-Antiracism: Fighting Backlash, Building Justice
Tull Auditorium in Gambrell Hall (also livestreamed)
Registration required
Darren Hutchinson, Emory Law professor and inaugural John Lewis Chair for Civil Rights and Social Justice, will deliver the 2022 Emory Law Martin Luther King Jr. Day lecture.
Wednesday, Feb. 23
4 p.m.
2022 Pellom McDaniels Sports History Lecture
Registration required
Elle Duncan, ESPN SportsCenter anchor, will provide this lecture designed to foster a conversation around race, sports and African American history. Named in honor of the late Pellom McDaniels III, curator of the African American collections at Emory’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, the program seeks to showcase the library’s African Americans in Sports holdings.
Wednesday, Feb. 23
4:15 p.m.
A talk with renowned artist Glenn Ligon
Registration required
New York artist Glenn Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. This talk is part of the Race, Social Justice and Contemporary African-American Art Series, sponsored by the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, The James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference and the Department of Art History.
Thursday, Feb. 24
12 p.m.
Lawrence P. and Ann Estes Klamon Room, Claudia Nance Rollins Building
Registration required; closes Feb. 15
This second Constructive Collisions session will be an in-person, on-campus event that will continue to connect researchers working at the intersection of race, equity, resilience and social justice. This session will host Lightning Talk presenters who will share brief 10-minute presentations on their ongoing work and future research interests. Following Lighting Talks, the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research will host a pitch session where event attendees will network, collaborate and brainstorm project ideas that can lead to extramural funding. The event will culminate with each team pitching a real seed project, with up to two teams receiving small, on-the-spot funding to support new collaborations.
Monday, Feb. 28
12 p.m.
Relocation and Realignment: The Political Impact of Black Migration and Politics
Registration required
Keneshia Grant, associate professor of political science at Howard University, will describe the ways that Black migration has impacted American society and politics.