Contact: Kimberly Osborne (304) 766-3363 kosborne@wvstateu.edu
INSTITUTE, W.Va. — West Virginia State University (WVSU) will celebrate Black History Month with a series of events throughout February.
A Black History Month Convocation featuring award-winning author and Georgetown University professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson will take place on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 12:30 p.m. in the P. Ahmad Williams Auditorium in Ferrell Hall.
A native of Detroit, who is also an ordained Baptist minister, Dyson is a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient and the winner of the American Book Award for “Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.”
Dyson’s most recent book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” was published in January 2017. A book signing will take place on the first floor of Ferrell Hall following the Convocation. The Convocation and book signing are free and open to the public.
Black History Month events at WVSU will also include a special screening for WVSU students, faculty, staff and alumni of the new documentary “The First To Do It,” which chronicles the life and times of WVSU alum Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in the NBA.
Following his college playing career at WVSU, on Oct. 31, 1950, Lloyd stepped onto the basketball court with the Washington Capitols and became the first African-American to play in the NBA. The new feature-length documentary examines his journey, from growing up in deeply segregated Alexandria, Va., to witnessing the first black President of the United States. Lloyd also went on to become the first African-American to win an NBA championship and the first African-American fulltime head coach in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons.
The special screening will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, in the P. Ahmed Williams Auditorium in Ferrell Hall.
Other events taking place at WVSU in celebration of Black History Month include:
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