A Black History Month Convocation featuring award-winning author and Georgetown University professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson will take place on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 12:30 p.m. in the P. Ahmad Williams Auditorium in Ferrell Hall.
A native of Detroit, who is also an ordained Baptist minister, Dyson is a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient and the winner of the American Book Award for “Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.”
Dyson’s most recent book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” was published in January 2017. A book signing will take place on the first floor of Ferrell Hall following the Convocation. The Convocation and book signing are free and open to the public.
Black History Month events at WVSU will also include a special screening of the new documentary “The First To Do It,” which chronicles the life and times of WVSU alum Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in the NBA.
Following his college playing career at WVSU, on Oct. 31, 1950, Lloyd stepped onto the basketball court with the Washington Capitols and became the first African-American to play in the NBA. The new feature-length documentary examines his journey, from growing up in deeply segregated Alexandria, Va., to witnessing the first black President of the United States. Lloyd also went on to become the first African-American to win an NBA championship and the first African-American fulltime head coach in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons.
The special screening will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, in the P. Ahmed Williams Auditorium in Ferrell Hall. The screening is free and open to the public with seating being on a first-come basis.
Other events taking place at WVSU in celebration of Black History Month include:
- Multi-Media Lecture – “Hip-hop Meets the World” — Thursday, Feb. 2, at 12:15 p.m. in the James C. Wilson University Union with Gerald Watson and DJ 2-Tone Jones, of the Shaolin Jazz Project. The lecture is exploration into Hip-hop and its roots and its people and about Jazz and where it all came from and where it might be going. Admission is free and open to the public.
- “Can I Kick It?” – Thursday, Feb. 2, in the Wilson University Union at 6:30 p.m. Experience director Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” film in a whole new way when the motion of this martial arts movie gets a soundtrack created live by DJ 2-Tone Jones. Admission is free and open to the public.
- “Shaolin Jazz Live” — Friday, Feb. 3 in the Wilson University Union at 8 p.m. Washington D.C. DJ 2-Tone Jones takes the lead with West Virginia’s Bob Thompson Band for a Jazz infused with Hip-hop concert. Free for all students from any school with a valid ID. General admission $15 and WVSU employees $10.
- “The Green Book” – Monday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Davis Fine Arts Building. Calvin Alexander Ramsey’s one-act play, inspired by Victor Hugo Green’s guide for African-American travelers, speaks to the 21st century from the days of Jim Crow. A question and answer session will follow the performance. Admission is free and open to the public.
- Sixth annual Omega Psi Phi Black History Month Celebration — Sunday, Feb. 12, in the Davis Fine Arts Building at 4 p.m. featuring the Martin Luther King Jr. Male Chorus, Institute Church of the Nazarene Dance Group, Horace Mann Choir and others. Campus drawings by retired WVSU Provost Dr. Charles R. Byers will be on display. Admission is free and open to the public.
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