New College Black History Month Features Symposium, Concert, Film Festival and Workshops

February 8, 2021 – Sarasota

New College of Florida hosts its annual New Schools of Black Thought symposium in a virtual format on Friday, February 12 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, February 13 from 11 am to 3 pm. This year’s symposium, “Black Lives Still Matter!,” convenes artists, activists, and academics to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement’s focus on social justice and educational equity. The public is welcomed and encouraged to be a part of this online symposium, which will feature a keynote address by New School Associate Professor of Politics Deva Woodly, Ph.D., an Open Mic night, and panel discussions on the local movements against police brutality and on school discipline.

Throughout February, New College is hosting a series of virtual events in honor of Black History Month. The program is part of the New College Connecting the Arts and Humanities on Florida’s Creative Coast and New College and the Cross College Alliance in the Community programs, which are funded by five-year $750,000 grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The festivities kick off on February 5 with a Sur La Bay Music Festival, which will bring artists’ performances and workshops into attendees’ living rooms (and feature the work of DJ Dubbz, Undine Shorey, Karim Manning, Greg Banks, and New College Assistant Professor of Caribbean/Latin American Studies and Music Hugo Viera-Vargas, Ph.D.).

On February 8 is a conversation on race and ethnicity entitled “A Heritage of Struggle on the Florida Gulf Coast from Angola to Newtown and Beyond” with Uzi Baram, Ph.D., professor of anthropology and heritage studies at New College and the director of the New College Public Archaeology Lab. Baram will share information about his Looking For Angola project, which explores a 19^th-century maroon community off the Manatee River.

The African Diaspora Film Festival on Black Europe, curated by Wendy Sutherland, Ph.D., associate professor of German, Black European, and Diaspora Studies, runs from February 9 to March 4. It will feature four films and three talks with filmmakers Medhin Paolos and Samba Gadjigo and novelist Stephen S. Thompson.

February 12 and 13 will showcase the “New Schools of Black Thought Symposium: Black Lives Still Matter!,” including a “Justice and the Politics of Care” presentation with keynote presenter Deva Woodly, Ph.D.

The week of February 14 to 20 will feature a community service conversation with members of New College’s office of Student Activities & Campus Engagement (SA[u]CE). The SA[U]CE office will work with local community activist Valerie Buchand on a conversation and an activity related to The Newtown Nation on February 15.

On February 17, there will be a healing writing workshop called “Writing for the Resistance: A Writing Salon” with New College Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Emily Carr, Ph.D.; as well as a “Black Music and Literature Listen-In: The Soundtrack of Pan-Africanism,” with Viera-Vargas and Errol Montes-Pizarro, Ph.D. (a mathematics professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico).

A campus conversation on “Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Race in the Antebellum U.S.” with New College Assistant Professor of Political Science Michael Gorup, Ph.D. will be held on February 18.

And the final week of Black History Month will include a conversation on race and ethnicity called “Suffrage as Activism: Black Women’s Movements for Civil Rights” with Janaka Bowman-Lewis, Ph.D., associate professor of English and the director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, on February 22; and a “Racial Healing: Building Interracial Coalitions for Social Change” workshop facilitated by Radiah Harper (an artist and museum consultant) on February 25.

Established by the visionary work of New College Associate Professor of Sociology Queen Zabriskie, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, and four undergraduate students, Nasib McIntosh, Donovan Brown, Paul Loriston, and the late Ijeoma Uzoukwu, the inaugural Black History Month program at New College took place in February 2015. Noting a disconnect, these individuals worked to address a need for the campus to illuminate, preserve, and increase information about Black life for the campus community. Since then, the committee has grown to consist of students, staff, faculty, and administrators who collaborate to bring the design and implementation of a program that is robust in highlighting the complexity and multiplicity of blackness and the Black experiences.

To find a complete symposium itinerary and more information about Black History Month at New College, please visit http://www.ncf.edu/black-history-month.