Colleges to Observe Black History Month

Achievements and contributions made by African-Americans will be honored across the nation throughout the month of February in celebration of National Black History Month.

Cerritos College will present a Black History Week Celebration running from Monday through Friday. African-American art and artifacts will be on display in the campus library through the week. The exhibit will feature posters depicting black accomplishments, historic prints and advertising, quilts and dolls.

Undine Wildman, vocal performer and 1989 Long Beach Public Corporation for the Arts grant recipient for individual preformers, will present “The Negro Spiritual Revisited,” a one-woman show combining historical lecture and song to trace the development of the Negro spiritual from its roots in Africa to America during and after slavery. Wildman’s performance will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the Burnight Center Theatre at Cerritos College, 11110 Alondra Blvd., Norwalk. Also on Tuesday, a book fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of the library.

Classical works composed by African-Americans will be performed by the Afro-American Chamber Music Society in a concert at 11 a.m. Thursday in Burnight Center Theatre.

Admission to all events and displays is free. For more information, call 860-2451, ext. 514.

At Whittier College, in coordination with National Black History Month, the Mendenhall Gallery will feature the works of three black artists: Darrell Kenyatta Evers, Willie Robert Middlebrook Jr. and Rufus Snoddy.

“Image pulling” is the term Evers uses to describe the philosophy of his paintings. Evers strives to make people more aware of their environment and social states of mind by “actively participat(ing) in deciphering images.”

Middlebrook uses photography as a tool to capture and convey his strong convictions, both social and aesthetic, and to depict the human condition. “I feel that my drive and my direction stem from my parents’ endowing me with strong feelings about the ideals and integrity of being black,” he said.

In his works, Snoddy proposes that there is a natural affinity between an object, as it appears in the visual form, and the illusion that makes reference to an object, or inherent properties of that object.

The exhibit will open Tuesday and run through March 1 in Mendenhall Gallery in the Administration Building of Whittier College, 13406 E. Philadelphia St., Whittier. The gallery is open from 9 a.m to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and admission is free. For more information, call 693-0771.