Program in the African American Experience
- Information
- Courses
- Speakers
- Cultural Activities
- Trips
- Calendar
- Photo Gallery
- Cover story -- Canisius Magazine, Winter 2004 (Adobe Acrobat .pdf)
- Books
- Read about the recent trip to Ghana in the Cultural Times Bulletin (Adobe Acrobat .pdf) and Canisius Magazine, Summer 2008 (Adobe Acrobat .pdf)
Dr. Bruce Dierenfield has established the Canisius College program in the African American Experience, which examines the manifold and unique contributions of African Americans. The program consists of four inter-related elements, including (a) coursework, (b) outstanding lectures, (c) on-site field trips, and (d) cultural encounters tied to African American History. No other liberal arts college in Western New York has a comparable program.
Courses
For the sake of convenience, African American History is divided into three broad areas—(A) Slavery, (B) Rise of the “New Negro,” and (C) the Civil Rights Movement—each of which has its own course, a slate of nationally-known speakers, and field trips:
A. The Slavery course (HIS 367/CRJ 367/WST 367/HIS 567) was offered in the fall, 2003, and featured four nationally-known scholars, an African American folklorist, the Canisius College Gospel Ensemble, a dancer & drummer from the Langston Hughes Institute, as well as field trips to see the replica of the slave ship Amistad; Charleston, South Carolina; Dresden, Ontario (the real “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”), Auburn, New York, (Harriet Tubman’s home), and area sites on the Underground Railroad.
B. Rise of the “New Negro” course (HIS 378 Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance) is offered in the fall, 2004, and includes a trip to Harlem, the home of so many cultural pioneers, from Marcus Garvey to Duke Ellington. C. The Civil Rights Movement (HIS 390/ HIS 590/EDU 590) is offered in a one-week workshop in the summers and as a semester course in the spring, 2005. The week-long workshop was first offered in July 2003. The highlight of our study of the civil rights movement will be a 10-day trip to the Deep South over Easter break (March 23-April 3, 2005). We will see dramatic sites in Atlanta, Birmingham, Little Rock, Montgomery, Oxford, and Selma.
Speakers
The speaker series includes leading scholars of African American history, as well as a number of African Americans who helped make history, including a Tuskegee airman, a Vietnam veteran, and such famed civil rights figures as Bernard LaFayette, C.T. Vivian, James Lawson, Melba Patillo Beals, and the Brown sisters.
2008-2009 Events
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Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008 Waldo E. Martin Jr. University of California, Berkeley Frederick Douglass Waldo E. Martin Jr. is author, most recently, of No Coward Soldiers: Black Cultural Politics in Postwar America (2005), as well as Brown v. Board of Education: A Short History With Documents (1998) and The Mind of Frederick Douglass (1985). With Patricia A. Sullivan, he coedited Civil Rights in the United States: An Encyclopedia (2000). Aspects of the modern African American freedom struggle and the history of modern social movements unite his current research and writing interests. | |
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Thursday, Nov. 13 Eric Arnesen University of Illinois at Chicago The Legacies of A. Philip Randolph: Civil Rights, Labor, and the New Black Politics Eric Arnesen, professor of history and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, specializes in race, labor, and civil rights. He is author of Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality (2001), Waterfront Workers of New Orleans: Race, Class, and Politics, 1863-1923 (1991), and Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents (2002), and is editor or coeditor of four other books. A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, he received the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism. He is currently writing a biography of civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph. |
2007-2008 Events
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October 25, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. Montante Cultural Center Prof. Peter Kolchin University of Delaware "Interpreting & Reinterpreting American Slavery" |
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November 10, 2007 at 9 a.m. Regis North Prof. Wilma King University of Missouri-Columbia "The Life Cycle of Slave Children in the Nineteenth-Century South |
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February 9, 2008 James Brewer Stewart "The Radical Attack on American Slavery" |
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April 7, 2008 at 7:30 pm. 418 Lyons Hall Prof. David Blight Yale University "The Underground Railroad" |
2004-2005 Events
- Thursday, August 5, 2004, 1:30 pm (Old Main 203) -- Parrish Kelley
- Tuesday, October 19, 2004, 7:30 pm (Regis South) -- Lillian Serece Williams, PhD, "Buffalo and the Great Migration"
- Wednesday, October 20, 2004, 7:30 pm -- Professor Neil McMillen, University of Southern Mississippi, "African Americans in the Age of Jim Crow"
- Tuesday, November 9, 2004, 7:30 pm (Regis South) -- Professor Shawn Lay, Coker College, "Buffalo's War on the Ku Klux Klan"
- Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 6 pm (Old Main 210) -- Celes Tisdale, assistant professor of English at Erie Community College
- Tuesday, November 30, 2004, 7:30 pm (Palisano Pavilion) -- Macy Favor and his jazz quintet
- Tuesday, February 1, 2005, 4 pm (Old Main 310) -- Irene McVay, "Jim Crow Education"
- Friday, February 4, 2005, 7:30 pm (Grupp Lounge) -- Professor Barbara Ransby, "Women in the Black Freedom Movement"
- Tuesday, March 15, 2005, 7:30 p.m. (Regis South) -- Rev. Charles Sherrod, "The Albany Movement"
- Thursday, April 14, 2005, 7:30 p.m. (Room 107, Horan-O'Donnell Science Building) -- Lawrence Guyot, "Organizing Freedom Summer"
- Wednesday, April 20, 2005, 7:30 pm (Regis) -- Professor David Garrow, Emory University, "The Political Evolution of Martin Luther King Jr."
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Thursday, September 11, 2003, 7:30 pm (Regis South) -- Professor Philip Morgan, Johns Hopkins
Dr. Lawrence Levine - Monday, September 22, 2003, 7:30 pm (Palisano Pavilion) -- Langston Hughes Institute dancer & drummers, Palisano Pavilion
- Thursday, September 25, 2003, 7:30 pm (Regis North) -- Professor Milton Sernett, Syracuse
- Monday, September 29, 2003 6:00 pm (Lyons Hall Room 311) -- Janine Carter, playwright
- Monday, October 6, 2003, 7:30 pm (Old Main 225) -- Karima Amin, African American Folklorist
- Thursday, October 30, 2003, 7:30 pm (Grupp Lounge) -- Professor Lawrence Levine, University of California, Berkeley
- Tuesday, November 18, 2003, 7:30 pm (Regis South) -- Professor Douglas Egerton, Le Moyne
- Wednesday, February 4, 2004, 7:30 pm (Regis) -- Rev. James Lawson (Nashville sit-ins)
- Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 7:30 pm (Grupp Lounge) -- Melba Pattillo Beals (Little Rock Nine)
- Friday, April 30, 2004, 7:30 pm (Montante Cultural Center) -- Linda & Cheryl Brown (Brown case)
Cultural Activities
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 Palisano Pavilion "African Drumming and Dancing"
American Menu, Paul Robeson Theatre -- Saturday, February 26, 2005
From the Souls of Black Folk, Paul Robeson Theatre -- Tuesday, February 22, 2005
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The Barry Harris Trio Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Microsoft Art of Jazz Series January 30, 2005 |
Black Nativity, Paul Robeson Theatre -- December 2, 2004
Down In My Soul, Alleyway Theatre -- September 24, 2004
Ladysmith Black Mambazo -- February 21, 2003
BB King, Shea's Performing Arts Center -- January 17, 2004
Trips
- September 13, 2003 -- Amistad Freedom Schooner; Buffalo's Erie Basin Marina
- September 27, 2003 -- Josiah Henson's home; Dresden, Ontario
- October 9-14, 2003 -- Rice Plantations; Charleston, South Carolina
- November 8, 2003 -- Harriet Tubman's home; Auburn, New York
- October 8-11, 2004 -- Harlem Renaissance; Harlem, New York
- March 23-April 2, 2005 -- Civil Rights Movement sites; Deep South USA
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Books
| The Civil Rights Movement Bruce Dierenfield, Professor of History, Canisius College, NY |
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| Keeper of the Rules, Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia Bruce Dierenfield, Professor of History, Canisius College, NY Click on cartoon for a larger version of the image. |
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For more information on the Canisius College Program in the African American Experience, please contact Dr. Dierenfield in the History Department at 888-2683 or dierenfb@canisius.edu.