Annual Conference on Black History in Pennsylvania

Posted by on December 31, 2004

Mark your calendar

28th Annual Conference on Black History in Pennsylvania
April 20-23, 2005
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“A Historic Black Capital of America”

The Conference on Black History in Pennsylvania is an annual event sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Atwater Kent Museum, Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., and Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, PHEAA, the Philadelphia Tribune and other local and state organizations.

The keynote speaker for this conference will be Donna Brazile, a senior fellow at the Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland, and was recently appointed as national chair of the Voting Rights Institute, the Democratic Party’s major initiative to promote and protect the right to vote. Brazile is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.

Other featured speakers are Deborah Willis, Ph. D., Tisch School of the Arts and Africana Studies, New York University. Most recently she was a Visiting Professor Princeton University and the Lehman Brady Chair in Documentary and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Manning Marable, Ph. D., Professor of History and Political Science and Founding Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies, Columbia University. In 2001, he initiated the Malcolm X Project at Columbia University, and Richard Dozier an architect and architectural historian, is professor of Architecture at Florida A&M University. Before coming to FAMU, he was chair of the Architecture Program at Tuskegee University and a professor at Yale University School of Architecture. He holds the Bachelor of Architecture from Yale University and the Doctor of Architecture from University of Michigan. He was one of two architects selected by the U. S. Department of Interior to assess threatened structures at 12 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The Conference focuses on different aspects of Pennsylvania’s African American heritage.

One special event will be a bus tour of black Philadelphia lead by Charles Blockson to visit and learn about many of this nation’s most significant historic sites and national treasures.

Walking tours thought the historic Sixth Street Corridor, the Liberty Bell, the site of the first White House and burial ground of the enslaved by Geo. Washington, tours of the first African American churches, the African American Museum, Atwater Kent Museum and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Many sessions will be held a many historic sites, including Mother Bethel AME Church and the Legendary Blue Horizon.

Cultural events will include a concert with jazz great, Dianne Reeves and Little Jimmy Scott, at the Kimmel Center, Friday Night Jazz at the Art Museum of Philadelphia, and many more events to highlight the cultural life of Black Philadelphia.

Seating is limited for some tours, to reserve your places, please email or call, Karen James-717-783-9871 or kajames@state.pa.us