2023 Black History Month Celebration
February 2023
Gospelfest
Saturday, February 4 | 3 pm | Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall
Black History Month Keynote Speaker: Wisdom O. Cole
Wednesday, February 8 | 7 p.m. | Chandler Ballroom C, University Center
Wisdom O. Cole is the National Director of the NAACP Youth & College Division. In this role, he serves more than 700 youth councils, high school chapters, and college chapters actively involved in the fight for civil rights. Wisdom brings extensive experience in civil rights advocacy training institute, electoral action training, grassroots organizing, issues toolkits, and webinars at the local, state, and national level. He has managed national campaign efforts focused on building Black political power through youth leadership development, advocacy, and direct action organizing for the past 3 years with the NAACP, formerly as the National Campaigns & Training Manager.
In his time at the NAACP, he has worked on campaigns around the cancelation of student debt, removing police from schools, as well as increasing voter access for young Black people. He has been featured on NPR, VICE, NBC Washington News, Brooking Institute, and The Economist as an advocate for Black youth voter turnout through issue-based campaign organizing. In 2020 he was named one of Complex Life’s 32 young activists who are changing the world.
Wisdom was previously a field and state conference organizer for the Afrikan Black Coalition (ABC), the largest Black collegiate organization in California. In 2014, he collaboratively organized the Afrikan Black Coalition conference that featured keynote speakers such as Marc Lamont Hill, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, and Attallah Shabazz. For this effort, he received the Chancellor’s Achievement Award for Diversity in recognition for outstanding contributions to furthering diversity, inclusion, and excellence at UC Santa Cruz.
Wisdom grew up in California where he earned a B. A. in Chemistry, with a minor in STEM Education, from UC Santa Cruz as well as a M. A. in Teaching from the University of San Francisco. (Credit: NAACP)
Step Show & Competition
Saturday, Feb. 18 | 7 p.m. | Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall
We regret to announce that the 2022 BHM Step Show has been canceled. Thank you for your interest in this event. We hope to be able to host the Step Show again next year. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Join area step teams from high schools, regional colleges and universities as they engage in a high-energy, entertaining competition.
UMW continues to monitor campus, local, and statewide COVID-19 data and has instituted protocols to protect our campus community. These protocols include requiring proper mask wearing while indoors, requiring proof of vaccination or a recent negative test, reducing occupancy limits at events, or restricting attendance to UMW community members only, obtaining contact information from event attendees for contact tracing, and requesting that the University be notified of any positive COVID test within 14 days of attending an event at UMW. The University may also implement additional restrictions if cases increase on campus or in the region. We encourage you to check our website for updates prior to arriving to campus for a scheduled event.
For more information, contact the James Farmer Multicultural Center at 540/654-1044 or umwjfmc@gmail.com. Visit students.umw.edu/multicultural.
Please email us at umwjfmc@gmail.com if you have any questions regarding disability-related accommodations.