Black History Month
Black History Month at ECSU
Black History Month has its origins in 1926, when historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson and the Association of the Study of Negro Life and History sponsored the first Negro History Week. It was celebrated the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Month-long celebrations of Black History began as early as the 1940s and picked up pace during the 1960s. In 1976, Carter's organization, now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), institutionalized Black History Month as we know it today.
The 2025 theme is African Americans and Labor. According to ASALH, the theme "focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all
kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect
with the collective experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center
of much of Black history and culture. Be it the traditional agricultural labor of
enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on
the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in
Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social
injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa,
and the Diaspora."
Thursday, February 6
Hip Hop Night with Beta Zeta
Featuring Soulful Creatives, NAACP, and ECSU History Scholars
Ridley Student Complex 206, 7:00 pm
Friday, February 7
Black History Game Night
Presented by ECSU History Scholars
Johnson Hall Lobby, TBA
Thursday, February 11
Dr. Asad El Malik, Diaspora Project at the African Center for the Study of the US
at Wits University
Presented by the Office of International Programs
Virtual, 11 am
Johnica Rivers, The Harriet Jacobs Project
Supported by NC Humanities
"Curating as World-Making: A Sojourn for Harriet Jacobs"
Johnson Hall 206, 12:30 pm
“Land as Source Material: Toward a Place-Based Practice”
Johnson Hall 138, 4:00 pm
Wednesday, February 12
Historic Walking Tour of Campus with Dr. Glen Bowman
Meet at Lane Hall front steps, 3:00 pm
Thursday, February 13
Community Connections: Dr. Blair LM Kelley, Center for the Study of the American South
at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
“The Making of the Black Working Class”
Ridley Student Complex 206, 5:00 pm
Monday, February 17
Movie Night: Rustin (2023)
Presented by the ECSU HIstory Scholars
Johnson Hall 138, 5:00 pm
Thursday, February 20
Dr. Julie Greene, University of Maryland
“Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal”
Johnson Hall 206 and Virtual, 12:30 pm
Monday, February 24
Historic Walking Tour of Campus with Dr. Glen Bowman
Meet at Lane Hall front steps, 12:00 pm
Friday, February 28
Vinyl and Verse
Presented by Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society
Johnson Hall 143, 2:00 pm
For more information, contact: