Baylor Libraries Display Black History Month Exhibit
Baylor University Libraries will present a Black History Month exhibit highlighting African-Americans who have appeared on U.S. postal stamps. The exhibit will be displayed throughout February in the Moody-Jones corridor.
The stamps honor legendary figures, from early political leaders to renowned jazz greats. Library staff members, Ethel Walton and Lesley Wilson, decided on the stamp theme and showcased the book, African-Americans on Stamps, by Mack Bernard Morant.
Large, colorful posters in the display feature Harriet Tubman, Madam C.J. Walker and George Washington Carver, who was the first African-American whose likeness was on a stamp. Photos of famous activists such as Malcolm X and musicians like Scott Joplin also are featured in the exhibit. To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, a display in the Jones library foyer features the civil rights leader's most famous speech along with pictures and books on the civil rights movement.
Black History Month, an annual event since 1926, celebrates African-Americans who have made significant contributions and demonstrates how they impacted society. Harvard University scholar Carter G. Woodson organized the first annual Negro History Week, which took place during the second week of February. Woodson chose this date to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln -- two men who had greatly impacted the black population. In the 1970s, the event was expanded to include the entire month of February.
For more information, contact the Baylor Libraries at 710-2112.