Franklin College will celebrate Black History Month with three events open to the public.

The first event features the Black History 101 Mobile Museum. It will be on display from 10-3 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 13. in the Branigin Room of the Napolitan Student Center. 

The Black History 101 Mobile Museum was founded by Dr. Khalid el-Hakim and contains an award-winning collection of over 10,000 original artifacts of Black memorabilia, dating from the trans-Atlantic slave trade era to hip-hop culture. As the nation’s premiere Black history traveling exhibit, the Black History 101 Mobile Museum has visited 41 states sharing “ourstory” at over 1,000 institutions reaching tens of thousands of visitors in diverse spaces, including colleges, K-12 schools, corporations, conferences, libraries, museums, festivals, religious institutions and cultural events.

The exhibit will feature over 1,000 artifacts on Black history during its visit at Franklin College. The mobile museum is scheduled to make 27 stops across the nation during the month of February, with Franklin College as the only stop in Indiana. This event is sponsored by the Offices of Intercultural Honors Experience and Engaged Learning and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.

The second event, entitled “Black History and Indianapolis,” will take place at 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27. It will also be held in the Branigin Room.

The event will feature Historian Robert Chester who will provide a lecture and presentation on the rich black history in Indianapolis. Chester is the curator at the IPS Crispus Attacks Museum, located on the campus of Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet High School in Indianapolis. The school and museum are named for Crispus Attacks, who was one of America’s earliest known individuals to successfully escape slavery and the first person to die for the New World in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The museum houses memorabilia from the first all-African-American high school in Indiana.

The third event features guest author Angela Jackson-Brown presenting “The Power of the Spoken Word, a Black History Month Celebration,” at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 28. It will be held in the Johnson Atrium of the Napolitan Student Center.

Jackson-Brown is an award-winning writer, poet and playwright who is a member of the graduate faculty of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University in Louisville, Ky., and in the fall semester of 2022, she joined the creative writing program at Indiana University in Bloomington as an associate professor. She is a graduate of Troy University, Auburn University and the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. She has published her short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry in journals like The Louisville Journal and the Appalachian Review. She is the author of Drinking from a Bitter Cup, House Repairs, When Stars Rain Down and The Light Always Breaks. When Stars Rain Down is a highly acclaimed novel that received a starred review from the Library Journal and glowing reviews from Alabama Public Library, Buzzfeed, Parade Magazine, and Women’s Weekly, just to name a few. It was also named a finalist for the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction. She will read from her work and answer audience questions.

This event is co-hosted by the Franklin College Center for Diversity and the Carlson-Stauffer Visiting Writers Series. Funding is provided by the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards, powered by Indiana Humanities, as well as the Carlson-Stauffer Visiting Writers Series. 

Maegan Pollonais, Ph.D., director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, shares, “I think it is important for people to know their history, and Black history is American history. It is part of our identity, and it should be acknowledged. I think that history can be a roadmap to the future, because we are always at risk of history replaying itself.”

For more information, contact the Franklin College Office of Communications at (317) 738-8185.

POSTED Feb 3, 2023