February is Black History Month. Several organizations on campus will hold events this month to celebrate the history and achievements of African-Americans.
This month-long celebration, once called “Negro History Week,” was started by Carter G. Woodson in 1926 as a way to recognize the contributions of African-Americans to American history.
The Black Student Alliance is holding its first Black Heritage Festival, beginning Monday with a date auction in Lee Hall Auditorium at 7 p.m. The event is sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta.
“This is going to be an informal kind of deal,” said Delta Sigma Theta Vice President Shawnboda Johnson.
About 10 women and 10 men will be auctioned. The auction winners will get the date and free admission to the Mahogany Ball Feb. 12, which is sponsored by the alliance. One couple will win a dinner for two at Old Venice Pizza.
“We’re out to have fun, and help people get dates for the ball,” Johnson said.
The alliance will host the Ebony Fashion Show Wednesday. It will highlight different types of fashions from African-American culture.
“African-American traditional dress will be showcased, along with some of the more modern fashions,” said alliance Vice President Eric Wesley.
The culmination of Black Heritage Week will be the Mahogany Ball which will be held in the Hunter Henry Center at 7 p.m. The theme will be “Unified Expressions of Love.”
The ball is open to all students. Tickets are $5 if purchased before the event, and $7 at the door.
“What the BSA wanted to do was to unify the entire black community around a series of events celebrating African- American heritage,” Wesley said.
The Student Association Minority Student Affairs will present “Black MSU History” on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Colvard Union Small Auditorium. The event will examine black history on the Mississippi State campus.
Another event celebrating Black History Month is the first lecture in the department of philosophy and religion’s spring lecture series.
Anthony Pinn of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. will speak on Feb. 25 at 5 p.m. in the Bost Extension Auditorium.
The lecture, titled “Religious Protest after the Dream: African American Religion’s Response to Poverty in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” will explore the role of African-American religion against the dehumanization of some African-American communities due to poverty.
“Black religion seeks to push against the dehumanizing consequences of poverty through theological formulations, institutional formations, and ritualized performance of resistance perhaps most highly dramatized in healing rituals and spirit possession,” Pinn said.