The Lindsey Wilson University community will celebrate the centenary of the founding of Black History Month with a pair of university events, a special lecture and a display of great Black Kentuckians.
The theme for this year’s celebration, established by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is “A Century of Black History Commemorations.”
Black History Month started in 1926 as Negro History Week by Carter G. Woodson. Woodson, who was a graduate of Kentucky’s Berea College and founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, chose to hold the celebration in the second week of February because it included the birthdates of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Black History Month was first celebrated in 1970, and in 1976 President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month, calling on Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
This year’s Lindsey Wilson celebration of Black History Month will also have a Berea connection as scholar and former Berea professor William G. Turner will give a talk on Feb. 17 about Appalachia’s connections to the Civil Rights Movement.
Turner’s talk, “The Appalachian Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement,” will be at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 17, in W.W. Slider Humanities Center Recital Hall. It is free and open to the public.
Other Black History Month events at Lindsey Wilson include “100-Year Celebration” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 12, in the Cralle Student Union Building. This event will mark the conclusion of the Lindsey Wilson Black Student Union’s Spirit Week, which begins Monday, Feb. 9. The Feb. 12 celebration will feature a decades theme that encourages students to dress in outfits inspired by the 1960s-90s.
On Wednesday, Feb. 18, the Black History Month Kahoot will be held online at 6 p.m., expanding the monthlong celebration to all Lindsey Wilson students in all locations. Throughout the month, posters from the Kentucky Human Rights Commission’s “Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians” series will be displayed in the Cralle SUB.
Appalachia’s connection to Civil Rights
Turner’s Feb. 17 talk will explore Appalachia’s influence on and connection to the 20th century’s Civil Rights Movement.
For example, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-56 sparked by Rosa Parks’ civil disobedience was influenced by the work of the Highlander Research and Education Center, located outside of Knoxville, Tennessee.
“Going back to the era of abolitionism, few people know that some of the most significant milestones leading up to the modern Civil Rights Movement started in the Appalachian region,” said Turner.
Turner earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Kentucky, a master’s degree in sociology and doctorate in sociology and anthropology from the University of Notre Dame. He attended the Foreign Affairs Scholars Program at Howard University, and he did postdoctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania and at Duke University.
One of his mentors was the late Appalachian scholar John B. Stephenson, who served as Berea’s seventh president. Turner served as a professor at Berea, including at several other distinguished schools. He was also interim president of Kentucky State University. He received a lifetime of service award from the Appalachian Studies Association in 2009, was appointed to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights and was inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
His most recent book, The Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns, was published in 2021 by West Virginia University Press. In 2022, Turner was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the National Trust for the Humanities in Washington D.C.
By Duane Bonifer
LWU Communications
