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Credit: Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution
A portrait of Marian Anderson, opera
singer, 1944, by Laura Wheeler Waring,
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution, gift of the Harmon
Foundation
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In celebration of its 26th year, Rutgers-Newark’s Marion Thompson Wright Lecture, New Jersey’s oldest salute to Black History Month, will examine the voices of African-Americans in literature, music and movement. The daylong event, “Black Creativity and Modern American Life” will take place Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Paul Robeson Campus Center in Newark.
Cheryl Wall, professor of English, Faculty of Arts and Sciences-New Brunswick, will deliver the keynote address at 9 a.m. In her book “Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition,” Wall examines the writings of such literary giants as Lucille Clifton, Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison, and maintains that writers’ words are music in the same tradition as jazz, blues, gospel and be-bop.
A dance performance by Arts High School senior Justin Dominic Melvin will take place during the afternoon session with a verbal interpretation of his moves by Temple University Professor Brenda Dixon Gottschild. Jazz by the Steve and Iqua Colson Sextet will round out the session. The lecture series is free and open to the public and runs throughout the day, wrapping up at 3:30 p.m. with a wine and cheese reception.
The lecture is named in honor of Marion Thompson Wright, a pioneer in the study of African-American history and race relations in New Jersey. It is sponsored by the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience in Newark.
For further information, contact Pamela E. Goldstein at 973-228-4559 or Marisa Pierson at 973-353-1871, ext. 11.
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