EMU celebrates black history this month

February is Black History Month, and Eastern Michigan University celebrates with a schedule of events that includes guest speakers, one a former Black Panther; a town meeting, music, dancing, poetry, a poster contest and an opportunity to see what you would look like if you were from another race.

Eastern Michigan's Department of African-American Studies, whcih sponsors Black History Month on campus, presents an event series, "The Cultural and Social Voice of African America." Events include:

• Akinyeme

  A Town Hall meeting is scheduled Tuesday, Feb. 12, 6:30-8 p.m., room 300, Halle Library. Akindele Akinyemi, CEO and founder of Network One, presents a lecture that addresses the social and educational challenges facing African Americans.

Akinyeme is a nationally renowned motivational speaker, researcher and educator. He is an advocate of family values and education as a means of wealth creation and believes that education, stable famlies and self-reliance are the best antidote to poverty. One Network is a non-partisan conglomerate of small businesses designed to gain economic and political power.

Former Black Panther and Nkrumah Scholar Ahmad Rahman presents the keynote address, "Parallel of Racial Injustice in the 1960s and 2000s," Monday, Feb. 18, 7-9 p.m., Student Center Auditorium. His keynote will provide students witha historical context for understanding the changes and transformations that have occurred in the realm of race relations in the United States.

Rahman, an assistant professor of history at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, was a leader in the Black Panther Party in Detroit. He was sent to prison in 1971 as a result of an FBI investigation. Rahman spent 20 years behind bars, earning his bachelor’s degree and becoming the first prisoner admitted into a graduate program at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Rahman is currently working on the "Kwame Nkrumah Reader" and the "History of the Black Panther Party in Detroit."

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