LECTURES/EVENTS

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Room 9206, 6:00-8:00PM The African World in the 21st Century Dr. Adeline Apena

This presentation addresses contemporary issues in Africa ranging from religion, environmental challenge, problems of nation building and external interests. In addition to examining these issues, the study will demonstrate success stories in 21st century Africa using case studies.   

Dr. Adeline Apena is an Assistant Professor at Kingsborough Community College. She received a B.A. from the University of Ibadan, a M.A. from the University of London, and a Ph.D. from the University of Lagos. She is the author of Colonization, Commerce and Entrepreneurship in Nigeria (Society and Politics in Africa) (Peter Lang Publishing, 1997) and Africa and its People: Course Guide with David Elliot (Empire State College, 1994).

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Friday, February 17, 2012 Room 9204, 2:00-4:00PM Lost Heroes: First Wave Civil Rights and the Niagara Movement Dr. Angela Jones Zapasnik

In this talk, Angela Jones, PhD will discuss her book, African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement. The Niagara Movement (1905-1910) was an all-black civil rights organization that enabled major social change. It transformed the black public sphere by vocalizing a radical platform to end Jim Crow and by assisting in the proliferation of the burgeoning black press. They organized primarily to thwart the rise of Booker T. Washington, his accomodationist ideology, and the conservative policies he represented. The Niagara Movement's legacy is neglected, the movement flippantly reduced to being the inconsequential precursor of the NAACP or a superficial organization created by the idealist W. E. B. Du Bois. The Niagara Movement, although short-lived, was not a failure. It was a success because it made the need to annihilate Jim Crow and the need to address the atrocities caused by slavery publicly visible. It is important that around the turn of the twentieth century, marginalized African American men and women carved out new public space for the purposes of discussing the struggle against Jim Crow and the limitations of American democracy. They assisted in the creation of the first wave of the civil rights movement. The Niagara Movement demanded full civil rights and proposed integrationist policies just like their mid-twentieth century counterparts. The Niagara Movement's platform influenced the NAACP and future civil rights organizations.

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 Room 9206, 4:00-6:00PM Manufacturing Powerlessness in the Black Diaspora: The Crisis of Leadership Dr Charles Green

This talk is on powerlessness and its reproduction wherever black and brown people, in particular, are located. Several factors are discussed as being associated with the persistence of powerlessness, however, findings reported in my work, Manufacturing Powerlessness in the Black Diaspora point to leadership as the core problem. At this critical juncture in the 21st century this finding could not be clearer as we travel throughout enriched Mother Africa, across to the Caribbean and Latin America, right up to the United States and Canada. Sharing our thoughts on how to bring about real change and advocate the manufacture of empowerment, would be an excellent contribution to Black History Month.

Charles Green received his BA in Sociology from Hunter College, MSW from Howard University, and the Ph.D. from Rutgers University. He occasionally teaches in the Ph.D. program in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate School and University Center. He is currently serving as Department Head and served in that capacity from 1998 -2003. His published works have been in the areas of race and ethnic relations, urban politics, Caribbean migration, and comparative urban development issues. He was the (1989-1990) Fulbright Scholar in Sociology at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is the co-author of The Struggle for Black Empowerment in New York City: Beyond the Politics of Pigmentation (Praeger/McGraw-Hill paperback, 1989), and editor of Globalization and Survival in the Black Diaspora: The New Urban Challenge (SUNY Press, 1997). In 2001 he authored Manufacturing Powerlessness in the Black Diaspora (Altamira Press a division of Rowman & Littlefield). His recent work (co-editor Roberta Coles) is "The Myth of The Missing Black Father" (Columbia University Press, 2009).

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Room C201, 6:00-8:00PM
The Life and Afterlife of Jean Michel-Basquiat
Dr. LeRonn Brooks

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THE IDA B WELLS LECTURE

'Documenting the Diaspora: Visual Archiving with New Media' Dr. Michele Wallace Thursday, March 8th, 2012 6:00PM, Room C201 Co-Sponsored by the Women's Studies Certificate Program