This month, the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom, or CSKC, will host programming in honor of Black History Month, including the A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. Memorial Lecture on Feb. 24, 6–8:30 p.m., at the center.
Black History Month’s precursor, “Negro History Week,” was established by African American educator and scholar Carter G. Woodson through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in February 1926. The organization’s purpose was to establish a dedicated time during the year in which African Americans could collectively learn about, and honor, important historical events, movements and people that have contributed to African American advancements throughout the course of history. Some sources identify the shift toward making it a month-long event as occurring as early as the 1940s, while others suggest a month-long expansion was embraced in the 1970s.
The Higginbotham lecture will feature civil rights activist David Fankhauser, who in 1961, at the age of 19, was recruited by the civil rights organization Congress of Racial Equality to become a Freedom Rider to Jackson, Mississippi. Fankhauser was subjected to violence for protesting racial segregation on interstate buses in the South. He will be joined by Village Council member, long-time resident and caregiver Carmen Brown, who uses her background and elected position to advocate for the needs of the working class, and Greene County precinct captain for the Democratic Party, villager Shonda Sneed.
This year’s convening, named after African American civil rights activist, historian, presidential advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson and federal court judge A. Leon Higginbotham, is an intersectional conversation. According to CSKC Executive Director and Officer for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Shadia Alvarez, the conversation will explore change-making.
“We want to not just talk about voting rights, but the importance of thinking of oneself as an agent of change. And what does that look like? How do you think of yourself as someone that can actually create change — whether it’s by one’s vote, or whether it’s by one’s action,” she said in a recent interview with the News.
The center will also provide Black History Month programming at the state prison in Chillicothe on Feb. 16 as part of a collaboration with the World House Choir.
“Dr. McGruder [Antioch College history professor] and I will be leading a workshop on the life of Martin Luther King and Coretta. That’s important to us because we believe that we don’t exist outside ourselves, and there is some work that we must do to overcome the harm, and the injustice,” Alvarez said.
She also said the center will co-host a private meeting with 15 local anti-racist groups, “or groups that define themselves as doing anti-racist or diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] work in Yellow Springs” on Tuesday, Feb. 28, at the Bryan Community Center. According to Alvarez, the group meeting is not a public event because of capacity issues, and CSKC is starting out with a smaller group of organizations before expanding the dialogue.
“Given the amount of feedback we’ve gotten about making it broader, it definitely won’t be the last time we do it. But we started small, thinking that we wanted to have a real intimate conversation with some of the movers and shakers, and it just kind of blossomed,” Alvarez said.
