US Embassy, UB commemorate Black History Month

| Sunday May 26, 2013 00:00

The university will also conduct a debate event on February 28 as part of the commemoration. The film screenings and the debate event will begin at 5:00pm in the University of Botswana Library auditorium. After each film, UB English Lecturer, Dr Maude Dikobe, will lead a panel discussion.

US Charg d'Affaires, Michael Murphy, joined officials from UB yesterday to launch the film festival prior to the evening's film screening in the library auditorium where members of the press and public have been invited to attend. Films to be screened include:

'Biography of Barack Obama', which was shown yesterday, 'America Beyond the Colour Line' to be shown today and The March to be shown tomorrow.

Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements and contributions to US society of African Americans. 'African American history is an essential thread of the American narrative that traces the nation's enduring struggle to perfect itself,' President Obama has said. 'Each February, African American History Month is recognised as a moment to reflect upon how far we have come as a nation, and what challenges remain.' The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) has selected 'At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington' as the 2013 theme for Black History Month.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation set the US on the path of ending slavery. A wartime measure issued by President Abraham Lincoln, the proclamation freed relatively few slaves, but it fueled the fire of the enslaved to strike for their freedom. In 1963, a century later, America once again stood at the crossroads. Nine years earlier, the US Supreme Court had outlawed racial segregation in public schools, but the nation had not yet committed itself to equality of citizenship. On August 28, 1963, hundreds of thousands of Americans marched to the memorial of Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, in the continuing pursuit of equality of citizenship and self-determination.

It was on this occasion that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his celebrated 'I Have a Dream' speech. Just as the Emancipation Proclamation had recognised the coming end of slavery, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom announced that the days of legal segregation in the US were numbered.