FDU Black History Month 2025
Feb. 1, 2025 – Feb. 28, 2025: View the Black History Month library exhibit, “Civil Rights – The Black Power Movement.” Available at Florham Campus Library Reference Room.
Feb. 5, 2025 – Feb. 12, 2025: View the Pop-Up Black History Month Gallery Exhibition. Available at Metropolitan Campus Art Gallery in University Hall.
Feb. 4, 2025, at 3 PM: “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross – Rise!”
Sponsored by the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences and the FDU Libraries. “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” documentary screening followed by discussion. The documentary examines the long road to civil rights, when the deep contradictions in American society finally became unsustainable. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., heralding the dawn of a resistance movement, with Martin Luther King, Jr. as its public face. Before long, masses of African Americans practiced a nonviolent approach to integrate public schools, lunch counters and more. Nonviolence, however, was often met with violence. In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, unleashing a new call for “Black Power” across the country.
Florham Campus: Orangerie, Monninger Center for Learning and Research. Zoom and registration link available here. For more information, contact Michael Cotto, assistant professor of humanities, at michaelcotto@fdu.edu.
Feb. 5, 2025, at 2 PM: “Black History Month Program”
Sponsored by the Office of Student Life. Join us as we open Black History Month. Metropolitan Campus: Rutherford Room, Greg Olsen Student Union. For more information, contact the Office of Student Life at 201-692-2231.
Feb. 12, 2025, at 7 PM: “Judas and the Black Messiah”
Sponsored by the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences and the FDU Libraries. “Judas and the Black Messiah” film screening followed by discussion. The film is about the betrayal of Fred Hampton (played by Academy Award winner Daniel Kaluuya), chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in late-1960s Chicago, by William O’Neal (played by LaKeith Stanfield), an FBI informant. Registration is necessary.
Zoom and registration link available here. For more information, contact Michael Cotto, assistant professor of humanities, at michaelcotto@fdu.edu.
Feb. 17, 2025, at 12 PM: “Blind Date with a Book”
Sponsored by the Office of Student Life, the Office of Housing and Residence Life and the FDU Libraries. Go on a blind date with a book written by a black author during Black History Month! Students will be able to choose a covered book to check out from the library based on a short blurb about the book. Florham Campus: Atrium (outside library doors), Monninger Center for Learning and Research. For more information contact Rhia Kumar, assistant director of marketing, the Office of Housing and Residence Life, at r.kumar@fdu.edu.
Feb. 18, 2025, at 3 PM: “A Conversation with Fairleigh Dickinson University Students”
Sponsored by the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences and the FDU Libraries. Students from AFAM1100/HUMN1201 Introduction to African American Studies will discuss Black resilience and resistance in terms of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. They examine the issues and problems that the movements attempted to address: racial segregation, voter suppression, police brutality, state violence, economic inequality and more.
Florham Campus: Orangerie, Monninger Center for Learning and Research. Zoom and registration link available here. For more information, contact Michael Cotto, assistant professor of humanities, at michaelcotto@fdu.edu.
Feb. 25, 2025, at 3 PM: “An Interview with Author Junius Williams”
Sponsored by the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences and the FDU Libraries. Junius Williams is a nationally recognized attorney, musician, educator and independent thinker who has been at the forefront of the Civil Rights and Human Rights movements in this country for decades. The interview centers on his published memoir Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power, which chronicles his life in the movements in the South and the North.
Florham Campus: Orangerie, Monninger Center for Learning and Research. Zoom and registration link available here. For more information, contact Michael Cotto, assistant professor of humanities, at michaelcotto@fdu.edu.
Feb. 27, 2025, at 8 PM: “Bingo”
Sponsored by the Black Student Union (BSU). Florham Campus: Twombly Lounge, Carpet Side. For more information, follow BSU on Instagram here.