CSUN Celebrates Black History Month with Virtual Events

Poster for Black History Month, 2021

The official poster for Black History Month 2021 – theme is “Celebrating Black Excellence: Resiliency and Creativity in the Digital Space.”

California State University, Northridge plans to host multiple virtual Black History Month events to highlight and celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of the Black community.

Organizations across campus, including the Department of Africana Studies, the CSUN Library and the University Student Union, will hold special online events during the month of February. The theme of this year’s festivities and celebrations is “Celebrating Black Excellence: Resiliency and Creativity in the Digital Space.”

“Our intention  is always to heighten our guests’  awareness to the  long, rich  and checkered history of people of African descent,” said Theresa White, chair of CSUN’s Department of Africana Studies. “Although we celebrate our heritage every day, this past year has forced our community to think deeply about political, racial and social issues of inequality and injustice, as we tapped into the deepest part of our being in order to thrive in the virtual space in the middle of one of the worst global tri-pandemics [health, economic and racial/social inequities] in modern history. But thrive, we have!  

“We are fortunate to have dedicated, passionate, committed faculty, staff and students on our campus who are steadfast in pushing forward in the most trying of circumstances,” White continued. “This year’s theme points our energy in a direction that honors our resiliency.” 

Black History Month began as Negro History Week in 1926,  as the fruitful vision of Carter G. Woodson, founder of  the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and has been transformed into the current monthlong celebration, White said.  In 1976, 50 years  after the first celebration, February was officially designated as  Black History Month.   

A highlight of the CSUN celebration is a Feb. 26 event, a discussion with renowned philosopher Cornel West of Harvard University. West, the author of 20 books, including the bestseller “Race Matters,” has taught at Yale, the University of Paris and Princeton, and frequently appears as a guest on numerous television programs.

Additional celebrations include:

  • Check It OUT
    • Presented by the Pride Center
    • Feb. 10, 3 p.m.-4 p.m.
    • Instagram Live
  • Tech Fest
    • Presented by the Career Center
    • Feb. 11, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
    • Handshake and Zoom
  • Healthy Love: Connecting Black 
    • Panel Discussion with Khaleah K. Bradshaw and Therapist Eve Marie Ford
    • Presented by the Africana Studies
    • Feb. 12, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
    • Zoom
  • Don’t Touch My Hair
    • Mixed Chicks CEO Kim Etheredge and Stylist LaRae Buress will be speaking
    • Presented by the Black House & WISDOM
    • Feb. 15, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
    • Zoom
  • Black Deaf Excellence
    • Presented by Ernest E. Hairston, ASL/English interpreter provided
    • Presented by Deaf Studies
    • Feb. 16, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
    • Zoom
  • Building Black Entrepreneurship
    • Africana Studies Professor Duane Ganther will be speaking
    • Presented by Black Male Scholars
    • Feb. 17, 5 p.m.-6:30 p.m.
    • Zoom
  • Growing Up Hip Hop
    • Keynote by Miss Diddy LA, Panelists are professor Anthony Ratcliff and rapper Arabian Prince
    • Presented by the Black House, Africana Studies and Black Male Scholars
    • Feb. 24, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
    • Zoom
  • Out On Stage
    • Presented by the Pride Center
    • Feb. 26, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.
    • Instagram Live

In addition to events, the CSUN Library is also marking the occasion with a Black History Month Virtual Book Display and a virtual exhibition: Confronting a Pandemic within a Pandemic: 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests in L.A.

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