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For many, Black and African Heritage Month is a time for learning, sharing, and community. Presented here are read, watch, and listen to recommendations from students, staff, and faculty around campus.

Brian P. Jones is this year’s guest speaker at the W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series. His book, “The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History,” was the focus of his talk as �鶹��Ƶ’s 2023 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series guest speaker hosted by the African and African American Studies Program.

In writing the Virginia Declaration of Rights, U.S. Founding Father George �鶹��Ƶ IV took a stand for individual rights. His ardent defense would later inform the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights—documents critical for securing liberties.

But a challenging irony rests in �鶹��Ƶ’s words versus his actions.

�鶹��Ƶ historian Yevette Richards Jordan focuses her research lens on African American history, with an emphasis on racist violence from the 1920s through the 1940s. For the past several years, however, her work has led her to uncover a hidden history of racial violence that struck her own family, and the trauma of that violence that continues today.

�鶹��Ƶ's Center for Culture, Equity and Empowerment put out a call for illustrators, painters, and graphic designers of all backgrounds to submit art on the theme of this year’s MLK Remembrance events of “Lighting the Pathway: Renewing, Reviving, Restoring and Remembering the Dream.”

The 2023 theme, "Lighting the Pathway: Renewing, Reviving, Restoring, and Remembering the Dream" serves as a call to action. Our hope is to, like King, inspire people to find their path in the fight for social justice, equity, and access for all people, no matter their creed, acknowledging everyone has their own path and must choose when to begin their journey. This post includes art submissions for the Evening of Reflection hosted by the Center for Culture, Equity, and Empowerment.

The Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music were pleased to host a symposium for scholars, performers, and educators on June 23-24 called: Performing Early Black American Music.

Roger Wilkins, a Robinson Professor from 1986 to 2007, and for whom Wilkins Plaza on �鶹��Ƶ’s Fairfax Campus is named, died in 2017 at age 85, but his legacy at the university remains strong.

As part of an effort to research and record local history, �鶹��Ƶ graduate and undergraduate students, along with faculty, have begun documenting Black students who attended �鶹��Ƶ and the Black communities that once existed in Fairfax County.

(FAIRFAX, VA) �鶹��Ƶ’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music presents A Song of Freedom: Featuring World Premieres by Evelyn Simpson-Curenton and Michael W. Nickens, Saturday, May 8 at 8:00 p.m. as part of �鶹��Ƶ Arts at Home. The concert celebrates unity and resilience in the face of division and uncertainty and showcases works by Black composers as well as selections inspired by the African-American experience.