Unfinished Business: From The Great Migration to Black Lives Matter
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Metro-Urban Institute will present “Unfinished Business: From The Great Migration to Black Lives Matter” Sat., Feb. 4, 2017, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. This event is co-sponsored with the Dr. Edna B. McKenzie Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).
During this program, Dr. Stephanie C. Boddie, Metro-Urban Institute senior consultant, brings the past to life through oral histories, film, and music. A classically trained soprano, Boddie sings several well-known spirituals including My Lord What A Mornin’ and Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel. The African American Music Institute’s Boys Choir will also perform under the direction of Dr. James T. Johnson Jr. and Mr. Howard Alexander III. Following the musical documentary will be a moderated panel with a Q&A and a reception. This program is created to appeal to intergenerational audiences and to invite discussion by community members.
Building upon her own research as well as that of scholars like Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Boddie provides historical context for the African American experience and the various migrations of African Americans. Through this program, she connects the themes of resistance and resilience experienced from the Trans-Atlantic slave passage to the Great Migration’s silent revolution to the louder voices of the Black Lives Matter Movement.
This Black History Month program will launch a year of workshops, conversations, and programs as well as interviews collecting oral histories of local African Americans with the help of a cadre of youth as junior scholars. Ultimately, “Unfinished Business” will use the dynamic of story to help the audience consider its own stories and prepare people to participate in listening groups and action groups that are affiliates for this work. In these community-based groups, Boddie hopes participants will begin to collectively make new stories and think about this history in a new way.
“Unfinished Business” also celebrates the 10th Anniversary of House Resolution 110 that declares the Negro Spiritual as a national treasure and “expresses the deepest gratitude, recognition, and honor for former enslaved Africans in the United States for their gifts to our nation.” This project is funded by the Advancing the Black Arts in Pittsburgh Program, a partnership of The Pittsburgh Foundation and The Heinz Endowment.
For more information, contact Dr. Stephanie C. Boddie at sboddie@pts.edu or 412-924-1409. ###
