Celebrate Black History Month 2021 With Our Display and Virtual Events Hosted Nationally

The national theme of the 2021 Black History Month is The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity. It is a time of recognition, reflection, learning, and appreciation. The UWSP Libraries has dedicated a display in recognition of Black History Month reflecting the  Black Family with resources from our library for you to explore on the topic. 

While in-person events are still not possible, a wonderful array of virtual events are being held nationally, and many are free. One bright spot of this pandemic is more and more organizations and individuals are sharing their knowledge and expertise through virtual events. Please take a look at this meta-list compiled by Eventbrite that are open to the public, and many are free with information on how to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/c/black-history-month-virtual-events-cwyhygw/

The theme for this year is described here by the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History: The black family has been a topic of study in many disciplines—history, literature, the visual arts and film studies, sociology, anthropology, and social policy.  Its representation, identity, and diversity have been reverenced, stereotyped, and vilified from the days of slavery to our own time. The black family knows no single location since family reunions and genetic-ancestry searches testify to the spread of family members across states, nations, and continents. Not only are individual black families diasporic, but Africa and the diaspora itself have been long portrayed as the black family writ large. While the role of the black family has been described by some as a microcosm of the entire race, its complexity as the “foundation” of African American life and history can be seen in numerous debates over how to represent its meaning and typicality from a historical perspective—as a slave or free, as patriarchal or matriarchal/matrifocal, as single-headed or dual-headed household, as extended or nuclear, as fictive kin or blood lineage, as legal or common law, and as black or interracial, etc. A variation appears, as well, in discussions on the nature and impact of parenting, childhood, marriage, gender norms, sexuality, and incarceration. The family offers a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present.