Black History Month: Opportunities to Learn and Engage

Black History Month offers the opportunity to educate ourselves of the history of African Americans, as well as to recognize and celebrate the achievements and successes of black Americans in the history of our country and within our communities.  Here are a few opportunities to learn and engage:

Giordano Dance Chicago Performance, Feb. 9th, 7:30pm, Viterbo University, Fine Arts Center Main Theater.

Giordano Dance Chicago (GDC), America’s original jazz dance company, lights up the stage with its signature power, elegance, athleticism, and unparalleled energy

“13th” Movie Showing and Discussion, Feb 13th, 7:00pm, Winona State University, 120 Science Laboratory Center. “13th” is a Netflix documentary that takes an in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation’s history of racial inequality.

Feb. 15 La Crosse Reads 1: an evening with poet, memoirist, and Yale Law School grad R. Dwayne Betts. (Learn more about Betts here.)

The poet will be signing books immediately prior to his event at 6 p.m. in UWL’s New Student Union bookstore (first floor). His keynote talk will take place at 7 p.m. in the Theatre (lower level rm. 0120). Seating is limited. Overflow space will be available on the ground floor of Wimberly Hall (immediately adjacent to the U).

Feb. 16 La Crosse Reads, 2: Keynote by Reginald Dwayne Betts, an American poet, memoirist and lawyer. Book-signing and reception immediately prior at 6 p.m. Poetry Reading by Reginald Dwayne Betts,  7:00pm, Western Technical College, Lunda Center.

Langston Hughes’ Project – Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz – Featuring the Ron McCurdy Quartet, Feb 22nd, 7:00pm, Winona State University, Location TBD.The Langston Hughes Project is a multimedia concert performance of Langston Hughes’s kaleidoscopic jazz poem suite. Ask Your Mama is Hughes’s homage in verse and music to the struggle for artistic and social freedom at home and abroad at the beginning of the 1960s.