Opening Ceremony 2012
Wednesday, February 1
12:40 pm to 2:10 pm, SAC Ballroom A

The annual campus community kick-off celebration for Black History Month features guest speaker Andrez S. Carberry, Employment Counsel for Avon Products, NA. There will be, cultural performances, student organization display tables, and light refreshments. Free admission. All interested students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend.

This year's theme, Sankofa!, teaches that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has taught us, so that we can achieve our fullest potential as we move forward. For 2012, the Black History Month Committee selected the sub-theme From Black Roots Everyone Grows to emphasize the positive contributions and tremendous impact that people of the African Diaspora have made in our country and throughout the world.

Co-sponsored by the Black History Month Committee, Office of Alumni Relations, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Department of Africana Studies, Office of Diversity and Affirmative Action, and in conjunction with various student organizations.

For more information, contact the Office of Multicultural Affairs, (631) 632-9968.

Black History Month is celebrated throughout the United States in the month of February. Stony Brook's annual observance of Black History Month, coordinated by the Black History Month Planning Committee, includes panels, symposia, and lectures, as well as cultural and social events.

Why February?
In 1926, Harvard scholar-activist Carter G. Woodson proposed the second week of February for "Negro History Week," primarily because it marks the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two men who had profoundly impacted the history of black people in America. The week was expanded into an entire month in 1976 as the nation reached its bicentennial year. At this time new light was thrown on the significance of February in African-American History:

• February 23, 1868: Birthday of W.E.B. DuBois, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
• February 3, 1870: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting blacks the right to vote, became law.
• February 25, 1870: Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black Senator, took his oath of office.
• February 12, 1909: The NAACP was founded in New York City.
• February 1, 1960: A group of black Greensboro, North Carolina, college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter.
• February 21, 1965: Malcolm X, the militant leader who promoted Black Nationalism, was assassinated.

Carrying Forth the Mission
Stony Brook University's racial diversity and scholarly excellence puts us in an outstanding position to celebrate the achievements and acknowledge the struggles of African-Americans. This is, of course, a year-round responsibility. With the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, we believe that "Black history, like American history, should be studied 365 days a year.  Yet [we] continue to view February as the critical month for carrying forth the mission."