Black History Month 2025: Honoring Black Excellence and History
Join us as we recognize Black History Month with a dynamic series of events that highlight Black history, culture, and contributions. This curated collection of programs features lectures, performances, workshops, and discussions hosted by departments and organizations across the institution.
We invite all members of our campus community to participate, reflect, and celebrate.
Black History Month Opening Celebration
Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Time: 6-7pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsor: Ujima
Description: Join us as we kick off Black History Month with an inspiring and vibrant celebration!
This event marks the beginning of the month dedicated to honoring the rich history,
culture, and contributions of the Black community.
Date: Sunday, February 2, 2025
Time: 2:30pm
Location: Arthur Zankel Music Center
Sponsors: Zankel and MDOCS
Description: This free afternoon-long screening features documentary-style portraits of jazz greats
Jackie McLean and Alice Coltrane alongside Sun Ra鈥檚 sci-fi odyssey, exploring themes
of music, spirituality, education, and Black liberation.
"Black History in the Future" Vision Board Party
Date: Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Time: 6-7pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsor: Ujima
Description: Join us for a creative and inspiring evening as we envision the future of Black excellence!
At this Vision Board Party, we'll reflect on our dreams for Black culture, progress,
and identity, and bring them to life through art.
Date: Sunday, February 9, 2025
Time: 4pm
Location: Arthur Zankel Music Center
Sponsors: Zankel Surround Concert Series
Description: South Carolina singer and producer Niecy Blues describes her songwriting process like
an undertow: 鈥淚 feel a strange pull, and let it carry me, following swirling leaves...
whole days roll by, forgetting about the body.鈥� Her full-length debut, Exit Simulation,
captures this sense of deep-rooted divination, cycling between simmering ballads,
ghosted R&B, downtempo gospel, and looped vocal improvisations 鈥� often within the
same track. The title is taken from a science fiction novel they read during the purgatory
of the pandemic, alluding to a dimensional ideation of departure 鈥� 鈥渢he permission
to imagine leaving.鈥�
Learning the Past, Being the Present, Creating the Future
Date: Monday, February 10, 2025
Time: 5:00-6:00pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsor: Wyckoff Center, Institutional Diversity, Black Studies, and the History Department
Description: Discover the vast Black history of Saratoga Springs and the greater Capital Region
with historian Field Horne and Paul and Mary Liz Stewart of the in Albany. Field Horne will share his new book, A Field Guide to Saratoga Black Heritage,
which uncovers and honors the Black community's contributions to Saratoga County.
From a personal research project to a driving force for economic development, the
Stewart鈥檚 journey鈥攆rom a historic house to the Interpretive Center of the Underground
Railroad Education Center鈥攂ridges the past with its lasting legacy, connecting history
to today鈥檚 justice issues. Engage with this remarkable transformation.
Refreshments will be served and copies of the book will be available.
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Payne Room in the Tang Teaching Museum
Sponsors: Studio Art Department
Description: Saya Woolfalk creates works of art that incorporate the African American, European
American, and Japanese influences of her family background. Also alluding to science
fiction, feminist theory, mythology, anthropology, archaeology, Eastern religion,
and fashion, she re-imagines a utopian, empathic world through painting, sculpture,
video, performance, multimedia installations, and public artworks. She is currently
working on a mid-career survey titled Empathic Universe, to be presented at the Museum
of Arts and Design in the Spring of 2025.
A Black Love Story Featuring Dr. Grady-Willis & Professor Grady-Willis
Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Time: 6-7pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsor: Ujima
Description: Join us for a heartfelt conversation with Dr. Grady-Willis and Professor Grady-Willis
as they share their unique journey of love, partnership, and Black excellence. This
event will dive into the power of love within the Black community, touching on personal
stories, lessons, and the importance of mutual support in both personal and professional
life.
Black Excellence Career Affair
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025
Time: 5:30-7:30pm
Sponsors: Career Development Center, Dean of Students, Office for Student Diversity Initiatives,
and Alumni Engagement
Description: Join us for an evening that blends celebration, networking, and good food as we honor
our esteemed Black alumni and community members. Several student groups will host
an interactive and engaging career panel with professionals from a broad range of
industries and class years. Panelists will share takeaways from their college experiences
and their perspectives on professional pathways. Registration is required and students
can register through . Guests include:
- Public Administration: Lola Brabham, President of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU)
- Education - Jacob Navarrete '08, The Connected College Counselor/PhD Student
- Criminal Justice - Tashawn Reagon 鈥�16, Senior Investigator, Civil Rights Corps/PhD Student
- STEM - Rashawnda Williams '17, Program Manager, Google Developer Studio
- Law - Nana Nyantakyi '19, JD Candidate, St. John's University School of Law
- Behavioral Health- Tyrone Jones '89, LMSW, Clinician, Refresh Psychotherapy
Lovefest
Date: Friday, February 14, 2025
Time: 1-4pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsors: Wyckoff Center and Institutional Diversity
Description: Spend the afternoon in community at this open house celebrating love and care. This
year's event will feature breathwork and feng shui workshops, chair massages, and
more. We are guided by bell hooks鈥� wisdom in her book All 麻豆破解版 Love: New Visions:
鈥淩arely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.鈥�
For more information and to sign up for chair massages or workshops, please visit
the Lovefest website.
Film Screening: Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Time: 2:45pm-4:30pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsors: Wyckoff Center, Black Faculty and Staff Group, Queer Faculty and Staff Affinity Group,
Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion
Description: Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project is a documentary celebrating poet Nikki
Giovanni's life, activism, and enduring legacy. Through archival footage and interviews,
it explores her role in the civil rights movement, her fearless advocacy for justice,
and her visionary imagination, symbolized by "going to Mars" as a metaphor for creating
bold, transformative futures.
Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
5th Annual Black Excellence Brunch: An All Black Affair
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2025
Time: 11am-2pm
Location: Payne Room of the Tang Teaching Museum
Sponsors: Ujima
Description: Join us for the grand finale of Black History Month as we host our 5th Annual Black
Excellence Brunch, one of the most anticipated events of the year! This is a special
tradition where we come together to reflect on our achievements, celebrate our collective
journey, and honor the resilience and brilliance of the Black community.
Film Screening: Rising Hope
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Wyckoff Center
Sponsors: Bob & Alicia Wyckoff, Wyckoff Center, Institutional Diversity, Racial Justice Initiative,
and Ujima
Description: explores issues surrounding the state鈥檚 historically oppressive policies towards
Black Mississippians, the massive employment loss following NAFTA, and the devastating
effects of defunding public education for consecutive generations. Following the film,
we will have a brief discussion with director Theo Avgerinos, director of photography
Chris Lytwyn, and participant Dr. Cora Jackson. Refreshments will be served.
RSVP:
Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes
Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Payne Room
Sponsors: Tang Teaching Museum
Description: Join us for the eighth annual Winter/Miller Lecture on Thursday, February 27, at
6 pm, featuring acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Nina Chanel Abney. Abney is known
for her bold paintings that challenge viewers to confront societal issues. She gained
wide acclaim as the youngest artist included in the influential 2008 exhibition of
work by contemporary Black artists 30 Americans, which has traveled the country.
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2025
Time: 8:00pm
Location: Author Zankel Music Center
Sponsors: Department of Music and the office of Special Programs and is cosponsored by Black
Studies, Gender Studies, Intergroup Relations, IdeaLab, Arts Administration, Management
& Business, with collaborators in Dance, Theater, and International Affairs, among
others. Funding is provided by the Zankel Music Fund and the McCormack Artist-Scholar
Residency Fund.
Description: The culmination of a year-long, 麻豆破解版-commissioned, multidisciplinary project,
Trill 101 was developed by composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist Melanie Charles
and the Make Jazz Trill Again family in collaboration with 麻豆破解版 students and faculty.
Through a series of class visits, podcast and video recordings, and jam sessions,
the project explored the intersections of jazz, Afro-diasporic musical traditions,
and contemporary artistic practice. Trill 101 reimagines jazz as a living, dynamic
art form, shaped by both its rich history and its ongoing evolution.
A Black Woman Speaks: Will you fight with me?
Date: Thursday, March 6, 2025
Time: 6pm
Location: Zankel
Sponsors: IGR
Description: The Intergroup Relations and Black Studies programs join forces with an annual event
bridging Black History Month and Women's History Month. Inspired by the IGR course
A Black Woman Speaks: Will you fight with me?, the program amplifies the voices of
Black women in pursuit of social justice.
To add your event to this calendar, please email details to Mariel@skidmore.edu